Earlybird launches fund for spin-offs

Earlybird sees universities as a breeding ground for unicorn founders. Now a fund is to promote more spin-offs.

Of 116 European unicorns financed with venture capital, just four spin-offs originate from universities. Venture capitalist Earlybird wants to change that: It has set up a 75 million euro fund that is primarily intended to support early-stage start-ups within colleges and universities in the field of deep tech. A six-figure sum per investment is to flow into the spin-offs.

The fund, called Earlybird Uni-X, works together with 45 professors in Europe, including RWTH Aachen University, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology and Imperial College London. Earlybird has established a team of six investors for the fund, consisting of former employees of Aachen-based tech investor P5 Capital and the founders of Motu, a Berlin-based seed fund. How Gründerszene has learned, P5 Capital is dissolving in favor of Earlybird Uni-X.

The problem: according to Earlybird, colleges and universities in Europe develop up to 60,000 new technologies or innovations every year, but only half of the ideas are transferred to a company. "In the US, people take the opportunity to spin off their great ideas. Here we are still at the point where people prefer to go to BMW, Bosch or one of the bigger players after their engineering studies," says Stephan Rauscher, one of the investors in Uni-X.

The first funds have already flowed into the mobility sector, as start-up scene writes. A total of 40 spin-offs are to be supported.