Oxford Sciences Enterprises is an early-stage

venture capital firm Venture capital (often abbreviated as VC) is a form of private equity financing that is provided by venture capital firms or funds to startups, early-stage, and emerging companies that have been deemed to have high growth potential or which hav ...

with over $800M in AUM based in

Oxford Oxford () is a city in England. It is the county town and only city of Oxfordshire. In 2020, its population was estimated at 151,584. It is north-west of London, south-east of Birmingham and north-east of Bristol. The city is home to the ...

, UK. It operates in partnership with the

University of Oxford , mottoeng = The Lord is my light , established = , endowment = £6.1 billion (including colleges) (2019) , budget = £2.145 billion (2019–20) , chancellor ...

, as the university's preferred investor, several prominent financiers back the firm, including

Google Ventures GV is a venture capital investment arm of Alphabet Inc., founded by Bill Maris, that provides seed, venture, and growth stage funding to technology companies. Founded as Google Ventures in 2009, the firm has operated independently of Google, Alph ...

, Sequoia Capital,

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. () is a Chinese multinational technology and entertainment conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the wo ...

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

and

Invesco Invesco Ltd. is an American independent investment management company that is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with additional branch offices in 20 countries. Its common stock is a constituent of the S&P 500 and trades on the New York stock exc ...

. The firm uses academic research from the university's science departments to form commercial businesses, also known as spin-outs.

Founding & Management

The company was founded in 2015 by

David Norwood David Robert Norwood (born 3 October 1968) is an English businessman who runs an investment fund that finances spin-off companies from Oxford University science departments. He is also a chess grandmaster, chess writer, former captain of the ...

, who was previously the founder of the IP Group, which initially invested only in spinoffs from the university's chemistry department. Oxford Sciences Enterprises initially raised £600m from investors, which included

Lansdowne Partners Sir Paul Martin Ruddock, (born 28 August 1958) is a British businessman, philanthropist and patron of the arts. He is a former Chairman of the Victoria & Albert Museum and Chairman of the University of Oxford Endowment. Early life and educatio ...

and

. Google Ventures partners Tom Hulme and Dr Krishna Yeshwant also joined OSI's advisory board, along with Google AI researcher

Demis Hassabis Demis Hassabis (born 27 July 1976) is a British artificial intelligence researcher and entrepreneur. In his early career he was a video game AI programmer and designer, and an expert player of board games. He is the chief executive officer and ...

, founder of DeepMind. Charles Conn, previously CEO of the

Rhodes Trust Rhodes House is a building part of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on South Parks Road in central Oxford, and was built in memory of Cecil Rhodes, an alumnus of the university and a major benefactor. It is listed Grade II* ...

and former McKinsey partner, was appointed CEO in March 2019. Former Google CFO Patrick Pichette joined him as Chair of the board. However, Conn departed in November 2019 and Pichette shortly after. OSI's CFO became acting CEO until the appointment of Alexis Dormandy, another former McKinsey partner, in October 2020

Structure

OSE is structured differently from other venture capital firms, being an evergreen patient capital, privately held company and not bound by an LPA . As such, the company holds long-term investments, pursuing a patient capital model. OSI differentiates itself from classic venture firms because of its relationship with the university. Unlike most university-linked venture firms, Oxford University is a shareholder in the company, with OSI receiving half of the university's stake in the

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, cop ...

of a spinout. OSE works with the university's technology transfer office, Oxford University Innovation, which helps manage the intellectual property and patent estate of the university. In July 2019, The company announced an investment from Chinese telecommunications company

owns £4.1m in OSI shares (approximately 0.7% of the total fund).{{Cite web, url=https://www.ft.com/content/28892c04-e453-11e9-b112-9624ec9edc59, title=Huawei buys access to UK innovation with Oxford stake, last=Fildes, first=Nic, date=October 2019, website=Financial Times, language=en-GB, url-status=live, archive-url=, archive-date=, access-date=2019-10-08

References

Venture capital firms of the United Kingdom Companies based in Oxford British companies established in 2015