Science & Technology Venture Capital Fellowship

Description

Enhancing investor capability to identify opportunities and deploy capital into scaling firms with a focus on science and technology, is critical to reaching the UK’s ambitions. In particular, research-intensive sectors such as deep-tech and life sciences require talented investors with deep domain expertise and a specialised understanding of the characteristics associated with these sectors such as longer investment horizons and scaling needs. While the UK already has an impressive set of venture capital (VC) firms that specialise in these sectors, capacity and skills gaps have been reported, and these are likely to be exacerbated by greater demand put on the system by capital due to be unlocked from institutional investors as part of the Mansion House reforms (see below). Moreover, both the Life Sciences Scale-up Taskforce and the Council for Science and Technology (CST) have identified a lack of S&T specialist investors in the UK. The development of new funds which may help to reduce funding gaps are also reliant on the development of talent in the UK financing ecosystem. To address this gap, at the autumn statement it was announced that the government will establish a S&T VC Fellowship programme. This Fellowship will support the investor base to better access, engage with and ultimately invest in the UK S&T ecosystem, supporting a growing network of high performing investors and funds across UK S&T VC and ultimately creating a pipeline of future S&T fund managers ready to commercialise the UK’s science and tech base. DSIT is seeking to procure an implementing partner to design and deliver a “Science and Technology (S&T) Venture Capital Fellowship”, a 12-month pilot programme with the possibility to extend for a further year.