Fusion IP announces ?20m funding round

RNS Number : 7671A

IP Group PLC

25 March 2013

 



 

FOR RELEASE ON

25 March 2013

IP Group plc - Fusion IP announces £20m funding round; new university agreements

IP Group plc (LSE: IPO) ("IP Group" or "the Group"), the developer of intellectual property based businesses, is pleased to note that Fusion IP plc ("Fusion IP" or "the Company"), a university IP commercialisation company in which IP Group has a stake, has conditionally raised £20 million through a placing at a price of 55 pence per share.

Fusion IP has also announced that it has signed Memorandum of Understanding ("MOU") agreements with two additional universities - the University of Nottingham and Swansea University. Fusion IP's directors believe that by expanding the Company's business model to new universities it will increase its access to additional IP and by raising additional funds it will ensure it has the financial strength to invest further in its key portfolio companies and to establish new companies out of its expanded pipeline.

The new MOU agreements allow for co-investment by IP Group, in line with the existing IP Group co-investment agreement.

IP Group has agreed to subscribe for 3,045,000 placing shares, representing an aggregate investment of £1.7 million. These 3,045,000 new shares, together with IP Group's existing shares, will represent 20.1% of Fusion IP's enlarged issued share capital.

The Placing is conditional upon shareholder approval at a General Meeting convened for 10 April 2013.

For more information, please contact:

IP Group plc	www.ipgroupplc.com
Alan Aubrey, Chief Executive Officer	[phone]
Liz Vaughan-Adams, Communications	[phone] / [phone] [e-mail]
FTI Consulting
Ben  Atwell, John Dineen	[phone]

Notes for editors

About IP Group

IP Group is a leading UK intellectual property ("IP") commercialisation company, developing technology innovations primarily from its research intensive partner universities. The Group offers more than traditional venture capital, providing its companies with access to business building expertise, networks, recruitment and business support.

The Company's portfolio comprises holdings in over 60 companies including Oxford Nanopore Technologies, the DNA sequencing development company, Revolymer, best known for its removable chewing gum and Xeros, which has received many accolades for its revolutionary clothes washing techniques with a much reduced requirement for water.

The portfolio includes early stage to mature businesses and has exposure to five main sectors - Energy & Renewables, Medical Equipment & Supplies, Pharma & Biotech, IT & Communications and Chemicals & Materials. To date, fifteen of the portfolio companies IP Group has backed have listed on the AIM market of the London Stock Exchange and one on ISDX.

Founded in 2001, IP Group listed on AIM in October 2003 and moved to the Official List in June 2006.

For more information, please visit our website at www.ipgroupplc.com.

About Fusion IP

Fusion IP plc was established in 2002 to commercialise university-generated intellectual property. It has long-term exclusive agreements with two of the UK's leading research-intensive universities, the University of Sheffield and Cardiff University, giving it exclusive access to all the IP generated by their research departments*. These exclusive agreements enable Fusion to identify world class IP and turn it into a commercial opportunity, either through the creation of a start-up company or a license.

Fusion IP currently owns shareholdings in over 20 portfolio companies, including significant shareholdings in Seren, Magnomatics, Phase Focus, MedaPhor, Asalus and Diurnal.

In 2012 Fusion IP announced its first major exit, when it sold its portfolio company Simcyp, a research-based business providing a modeling and simulation platform for predicting the fate of drugs in virtual populations, to US based Certara LP for $32 million, a 200 fold return on its original investment.

For more information visit www.fusionip.co.uk

*The expanded agreement with the University of Sheffield did not include the right to the IP from Sheffield's Advanced Materials Research Centre.

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