Liverpool’s Metro Mayor has announced £10.5 million for a new investment company as the city region aims to build an “innovation powerhouse”.
The investment has created a new company – LCR Ventures – and it will initially provide incubator services and funding to very early-stage startups in the Liverpool City Region’s health and life sciences sector.
Steve Rotheram, Mayor of the Liverpool City Region, says: “Our investment builds on the assets of our region’s fantastic health and life sciences sector and will provide the support needed to help turn good ideas into great businesses.
“I’m determined to make our region the country’s innovation engine and, to make that happen, we’ll be investing 5% of our GVA [gross value added] in research and development over the next few years – nearly double the government’s national targets.”
LCR Ventures founding Chief Executive Lorna Green explains: “Investors want to back a product, not an idea, and with this new fund we can plug the gap in funding early-stage development to make it investment-ready. We will grow a pipeline of high value startups and by attracting further investment we will be able to take ideas from concept to commercialisation, increasing the region’s skill base and ultimately benefiting patients and the local population.”
In the short term LCR Ventures is expected to create 60 to 100 jobs.
LCR Ventures will take an equity stake in new businesses in return for financial support and expertise. If the business is successful, the investment will be recycled and reinvested.
The first £7.5 million of funding has enabled project sponsor The Innovation Agency to establish LCR Ventures as a stand-alone not-for-profit company.
It will also create a £5 million Challenge Fund for the health and life sciences sector, where the city region has existing assets, including the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the “largest cluster of specialist NHS hospitals and supporting assets outside London”.
This development won’t just be about the enterprise tech sector, but some firms in this field will no doubt benefit.
The Mayor also mentions the STFC Hartree Centre for artificial intelligence and computing, and this came up in the news in November.
Last month a new Digital Tech Cluster at Sci-Tech Daresbury was revealed – which could potentially bring 1,000 jobs to North West England.
Sci-Tech Daresbury is located in the Liverpool City Region. Warrington, Runcorn, Manchester and Liverpool are “a short distance away” from the campus.
Businesses in the cluster will get access to experts and university academics located at the campus. Such as the aforementioned STFC Hartree Centre and its most recent collaborative programme with IBM, the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation.
