This is exactly the sort of thing that never happens in the UK. A big, fat £300m fund for spin-offs from the University of Oxford.
One thing I have learnt, and re-learnt recently, is that the right people, with a clear problem and, crucially, enough time is a properly winning combination.
Oxford has always had the right people. There are plenty of problems that need solving. The thing that UK firms have always suffered from has been a lack of proper investment and, therefore, insufficient time.
No doubt the success of Natural Motion (who I'm reliably informed started life in exactly the same office from which I write this) and several others has made Mr Woodford's job a lot easier. Woodford too, is Oxford based.
A new partnership between Isis Innovation, Oxford’s technology transfer subsidiary responsible for protecting and commercializing its research and resulting technologies, and the newly formed Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI) will seek to support spinout companies from the university. OSI has been set up with the express purpose of taking on capital from investors who wish to fund companies forming from the university’s mathematical, physical, life sciences, and medical sciences divisions... Of the proposed final fund, £210 million ($330 million) is in the pot already courtesy of Invesco Asset Management Limited, IP Group, Lansdowne Partners (UK), Oxford University Endowment Fund, the Wellcome Trust, and Woodford Investment Management.
unknownx500
