Pioneer Group are pleased to announce that we have launched 14,000 square feet of vital start-up and scale up labs at Kent Science Park.
The Ventures Building has undergone an extensive £2.5 million refurbishment to incorporate new flexible layouts and fully-fitted CL2 labs and offices.
The announcement comes as market data released by Pioneer Group and JLL revealed that there has been a 43 percent increase in the number of life science start-ups in the South East since 2016.
Pioneer Group’s new building will provide ‘plug and play’ units ranging in size from 250 square feet up to 2,500 square feet, and offer much-needed research space for start-ups and scale-ups who are typically locked out of supply-strapped areas like Oxford, Cambridge and London.
The Kent Science Park, which boasts 565,000 square feet of research and development space, is home to companies that span life sciences, AgTech, environmental technology, high-tech engineering and other knowledge-based industries. The campus, which is less than an hour from St Pancras and Victoria rail stations, has CL1, 2 and 3 labs. This means the campus can offer companies at the earliest stages of incubation vital grow on space, plus larger laboratories and GMP facilities.
The Park boasts a mixed tenant base, including companies focussed on pharmaceutical R&D, Virology research, AgTech, and Food Tech – helping to create a true-life science ecosystem that encourages collaboration and knowledge sharing.
Built by one of the most experienced teams in the industry over the last 20 years, with very strong life sciences and property credentials, Pioneer Group’s unparalleled ecosystem building expertise and concerted efforts to partner with the UK’s leading Universities, venture capitalists and other life science stakeholders remain instrumental to its ongoing success.
Pioneer Group delivers the most comprehensive suite of accelerator and venture building activity across the UK and Ireland, helping founders to transfer cutting-edge discovery into visionary ventures that scale. Pioneer’s in-house team supports start-ups and scale-ups and works in partnership with organisations such as Innovate UK, AbbVie, Astellas, Academic Health Science Networks and many of the UK’s strongest universities.
Pioneer also backs game-changing, early-stage life science companies with investment from its venture capital funds, alongside ongoing mentoring and assistance. The focus is on funding the most promising companies graduating from Pioneer’s venture building programmes. Since 2015, Pioneer has supported over 80 early-stage ventures which have raised in excess of £200m.
Pioneer Group has curated a trusted community of 1,000+ experts, mentors, venture partners, corporates, clients and alumni operating in the most exciting areas of life sciences and high-tech innovation.
Today, Pioneer Group’s operating asset base consists of more than four million square feet of highly leased office/laboratory and manufacturing space in key locations in the UK and Ireland, including Nottingham, Manchester, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Dublin.
Jeroen Houtzager, Director at Pioneer Group, said:
“Our new tenants at the Ventures Building will be plugged into an ecosystem that fosters innovation, supports growth and facilitates expansion. The South East of England is a globally renowned life sciences hub, but a severe lack of purpose-built space continues to hamper the region’s huge potential to transform into a US-style supercluster. Companies at the Ventures Building will benefit from ‘plug and play’ labs, access to shared equipment and ample grow on space for future expansion.
“Tenants at Kent Science Park are pioneering research and discovery into some of humanity’s most pressing issues – namely disease and food security – so it’s great to be relaunching this asset to provide much-needed start-up and scale-up space.”
