New £22.5m fund to support local tech start-ups

A new £22.5m fund for "cutting-edge" start-ups has been launched by a mayor and a region's universities.

North East Mayor Kim McGuinness and Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside universities have launched the fund to support early-stage local businesses spun out from research projects.

McGuinness said: "Our five universities have joined with us in a bold move to ensure their spinout companies can succeed for our region."

The group said it aimed to support at least 30 firms in the first five years.

The North East Mayoral Strategic Authority (MSA) will be contributing £10m to the pot, whereas the universities will contribute £12.5m.

The group said the aim of the fund was to support local businesses based on academic research which struggled to get funding from private investors.

They said the pot would help "tackle long-standing market failures" which have hampered "innovation-led" growth in the region.

The new funding follows the region's universities getting £8.9m from Research England last year to better "commercialise impactful research".

The fund has already made some initial investments in firms including £500,000 to synthetic DNA company NunaBio spun out by Newcastle University in 2021.

Newcastle University vice chancellor Chris Day said the fund represented the "ambition and collaboration" which would drive the North East economy.

Meanwhile Northumbria university vice chancellor Prof Andy Long said the fund would help "researchers go further and faster in converting their ideas into successful businesses".

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