Cambridge Enterprise — University of Cambridge's Technology Transfer & Spinout Office

Cambridge Enterprise Limited was formed on 1 December 2006 as a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Cambridge, tasked with technology development and licensing, company creation, investment in university spinouts, and support for academic consultancy.
In the financial year to 31 July 2025, Cambridge Enterprise recorded 1,129 invention disclosures, filed 372 patent applications, signed 874 licences (121 commercial and 753 research licences), formed 20 new companies, invested £4.3 million across 32 spinout ventures, invested a further £3.2 million in patents and proof-of-concept funding, and supported 2,771 researchers. Its investment portfolio held 196 companies worth £94.2 million, which have together raised £402 million in external capital; across its Enterprise Funds I-IX it has invested almost £27 million into 60 spinout companies that have collectively raised over £550 million in syndicated capital and are now valued at more than £1 billion.
Independently, the University of Cambridge spun out 26 new companies in 2024 alone — the largest year-on-year increase among the UK's three leading spinout universities — according to the "Spotlight on Spinouts 2025" report produced by the Royal Academy of Engineering with data analytics firm Beauhurst, which ranked Cambridge second nationally for total spinouts created since 2011, behind Oxford.
Why it matters for Knowledge Transfer: Cambridge Enterprise shows what a long-running, well-resourced, single legal entity dedicated purely to technology transfer and spinout investment can sustain at scale over nearly two decades — a useful benchmark alongside other university-TTO models such as ETH transfer, NTNU Technology Transfer and KTH Innovation already represented in this catalogue.

Read the full analysis: https://www.enterprise.cam.ac.uk/about-cambridge-enterprise/our-performance/