An investment opportunity for commercial innovative technology and research infrastructure projects requiring £50m+

The opportunity

The UK innovation system presents a commercially attractive investment proposition to International investors.  UKTI Innovation Gateway is engaged with global Sovereign Wealth Funds, Pensions Funds and High Net Worth Individuals with significant investment portfolios, and who have stated aims to boost their own knowledge economies through strategic investment. They are also demonstrating a growing appetite for investing in alternative and ‘higher risk’ investments such as science and innovation alongside traditional investments in ‘lower risk’ infrastructure and property. The Innovation Gateway’s role is to help individual commercially investable projects and/or catalyse the creation of packages of innovation investment and lower risk/lower return asset classes to enable more investments to be made.

Projects Sought

The Innovation Gateway promotes commercial innovation projects of all sorts, from university buildings and research / innovation centres, to innovative companies and innovation focussed funds. 
UKTI Innovation Gateway are looking for projects requiring large amounts of finance £50m-£100m minimum, no project is too large.   [Smaller projects could be considered for Venture Capital Investment.]

Suitable Projects

There is no ‘right answer or model’ as each investor has individual preferences. We aim to match interests and projects. Projects can be a single opportunity or can have multiple dimensions, this is not a problem as long as the linkage between elements is logical, for example a project ‘scheme’ or ‘package’ could potentially involve the following elements:
• Innovation company seeking investment to grow
• Development of the next phase of a Technology Park
• Specialist Innovation related Facilities/Equipment/ Environments (available for short term rent to site users as a service)
• Student or Hotel Accommodation adjoining (or within) for visitors or local commercially linked needs.
• Extension/Expansion of existing innovation focussed premises

Return on Investment Levels

The absolute must is that the project is commercially viable and stand up to due diligence.  The key question is “what is the return for the investor”?  This may be broader than a purely financial return and include societal benefits, complementary to existing investments and opportunities for knowledge transfer and sectoral growth.

There are a number of key factors to also consider:
• Building on existing globally recognised academic or commercial strengths, by association or location.
• Addressing global marketplace or an investor’s domestic needs.
• Existing government support or co-investment/location with global businesses or brands will be looked upon favourably from a commercial perspective.

A recent example

On Sept 10 2014, the Chancellor announced an investment of £60m into a new “Graphene Engineering and Innovation Centre” (GEIC) at Manchester University.  The Mubadala Development Company (UAE Sovereign Wealth Fund) invested in a £200m ‘package’ investment including a £30m investment in the Graphene Centre (higher risk return) and £170m in student housing at Manchester University (lower risk return). The project was developed by City of Manchester and University of Manchester and supported by the UKTI Innovation Gateway.

Who can benefit from this opportunity?

We are open to approaches from Corporates, Companies, Universities, LEPs, Enterprise Zones, Trade Associations or any other innovation facing organisations.
Existing plans may fit some but not all the criteria; we would particularly encourage merged proposition between technology or geographically relevant interests forming a stronger, packaged deal of balanced risk.

What is the timeline?

The Innovation Gateway is building a ‘pitchbook’ of investment ready projects which is shared with potential investors.  This is an on-going process with no ‘end’.
The Innovation Gateway is therefore seeking ready (or near ready) investment projects to add to this pitchbook.    There will be regular ‘calls’ for such projects, the next one will run from 27 November 2014 to 30 January 2015. 
While ‘ready’ projects are the priority, Innovation Gateway team is available to help form ideas of projects at their initial stages.
If you have a potential project then please complete the attached template and send to [email protected] . The Innovation Gateway team will then contact you and develop promising projects