Universities
Helping Research Become Growing Companies
We work alongside universities and their commercialisation teams to help research-based companies form, access capital and find the specialist facilities they need. Our role and aims are to complement the work of existing ecosystem stakeholders.
Each partnership builds on your existing activity and priorities. We shape our support around the needs of researchers, founders and growing companies.
How We Can Help
Company Building, Early Capital and Specialist Facilities, Alongside Your Own Support
We can bring venture building, early capital and specialist facilities into the support already available to researchers and founders.
Universities bring research, talent and commercialisation expertise. Our network connects that strength with companies, investors and industry partners, accelerating spin-out development and wider collaboration.
Venture Building
Programmes that help researchers and founders test commercial potential and shape a company worth backing. We have worked with innovators from 36 different Universities in the last 2 years.
Early Capital
We have venture funds investing from pre-seed to Series A, in university spin-outs across the UK.
Specialist Facilities
We can house founders in appropriate laboratories and technical facilities across our locations. We also work with university partners to develop their own innovation real estate.
Why It Matters
Companies That Grow Near Their Science Keep Value Near It
Helping companies form, raise finance and grow near the university that produced their science increases the chance that the resulting jobs, investment and capability stay close to it.
World-class research is distributed evenly across the UK. Access to venture capital is not. Pioneer’s network spans many of the UK and Ireland’s strongest science clusters, including regions where access to venture capital is more limited. We work hard to connect regional spin outs to the money they need.
King’s College London
King’s College London already produce high-quality spin-outs, such as Quell Therapeutics, but they are ambitious to produce more and to retain them close to the University. A lack of innovation space means that spin-outs currently must relocate to other parts of London or further afield and the compound effect on the local ecosystem is lost.
Through partnership with KCL, Pioneer is collaborating on the delivery of venture programmes complimenting the expertise and connections of their London Institute of Health Engineering (LIHE) to accelerate spin-out activity. As well as, building 2 new innovation centres co-located with the University and the Hospitals of Guys and St Thomas’s to house spin outs and retain their growth locally.