Fundraising

Emory University's endowment fund was among the LPs that chipped in for the venture capital firm’s Continuum I fund, which has closed at $56.6m.

A group of private investors led by drug development executive An LuFan have seeded a fund to drive healthcare research from South Australia's academic sector.

Pear's third seed fund stands at more than twice the size of its precursor, having secured the continued backing of University of Chicago.

Epidarex Capital has launched a new drug discovery initiative providing seed funding and hands-on support to nurture fledgling projects.

Mac Ventures will receive support from Yeshiva University business school students, making early-stage investments in a number of tech-oriented sectors.

NVM Private Equity has sold its three northeast England-focused venture capital trusts to Mercia Asset Management.

Steady is the assessment that comes to mind, rather than remarkable, when probing the year-on-year direction of corporate venture capital investment in university spinouts.

With hundreds of university venture funds, internal commercialisation vehicles and third-party firms the reality in today’s innovation ecosystem, selecting the nominees and the winner for Investment Unit of the Year is increasingly challenging.

One only has to look at the investors in the €117m ($135m) final close for Imec.xpand, the venture fund of nano-electronics research institute Imec, to see why it is worthy of GUV’s Fundraising of the Year award.