Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE) (Previously known as ''Oxford Sciences Innovation'') is a British early-stage

venture capital firm Venture capital (VC) is a form of private equity financing provided by firms or funds to startup, early-stage, and emerging companies, that have been deemed to have high growth potential or that have demonstrated high growth in terms of number ...

with over $800M in

AUM ''Om'' (or ''Aum''; ; , ISO 15919: ''Ōṁ'') is a polysemous symbol representing a sacred sound, seed syllable, mantra, and invocation in Hinduism. Its written form is the most important symbol in the Hindu religion. It is the ess ...

based in

Oxford Oxford () is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and non-metropolitan district in Oxfordshire, England, of which it is the county town. The city is home to the University of Oxford, the List of oldest universities in continuou ...

, UK. It operates in partnership with the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate university, collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the List of oldest un ...

, as the university's preferred investor, several prominent financiers back the firm, including Google Ventures,

Sequoia Capital Sequoia Capital Operations, LLC is an American venture capital firm headquartered in Menlo Park, California, specializing in seed stage, early stage, and growth stage investments in private companies across technology sectors. the firm had appro ...

Tencent Tencent Holdings Ltd. ( zh, s=腾讯, p=Téngxùn) is a Chinese Multinational corporation, multinational technology Conglomerate (company), conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimed ...

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ("Huawei" sometimes stylized as "HUAWEI"; ; zh, c=华为, p= ) is a Chinese multinational corporationtechnology company in Longgang, Shenzhen, Longgang, Shenzhen, Guangdong. Its main product lines include teleco ...

and

Invesco Invesco Ltd. is an American independent investment management company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, with branch offices in 20 countries. Its common stock is a constituent of the S&P 500 and trades on the New York Stock Exchange. Invesco oper ...

. The firm uses academic research from the university's science departments to form commercial businesses, also known as spin-outs.

History

The company was founded as Oxford Sciences Innovation (OSI) in 2015 by David Norwood, who was previously the founder of the IP Group, which initially invested only in spinoffs from the university's chemistry department. Oxford Sciences Enterprises initially raised £600m from investors, which included Lansdowne Partners and Google Ventures. Google Ventures partners Tom Hulme and Dr Krishna Yeshwant also joined OSI's advisory board, along with Google AI researcher

Demis Hassabis Sir Demis Hassabis (born 27 July 1976) is a British artificial intelligence (AI) researcher, and entrepreneur. He is the chief executive officer and co-founder of Google DeepMind, and Isomorphic Labs, and a UK Government AI Adviser. In 2024, Ha ...

, founder of

DeepMind DeepMind Technologies Limited, trading as Google DeepMind or simply DeepMind, is a British–American artificial intelligence research laboratory which serves as a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc. Founded in the UK in 2010, it was acquired by Go ...

. Charles Conn, previously CEO of the

Rhodes Trust Rhodes House is a building part of the University of Oxford in England. It is located on South Parks Road in central Oxford, and was built in memory of Cecil Rhodes, an alumnus of the university and a major benefactor. It is listed Grade II* ...

and former McKinsey partner, was appointed CEO in March 2019. Former Google CFO

Patrick Pichette Patrick Pichette (born 1962) is a Canadian business executive and venture capitalist who was the senior vice president and the chief financial officer of Google from 2008 until 2015. He then became a venture capital fund manager, and is a dire ...

joined him as Chair of the board. However, Conn departed in November 2019 and Pichette shortly after. OSI's CFO became acting CEO until the appointment of Alexis Dormandy, another former McKinsey partner, in October 2020 In July 2019, The company announced an investment from Chinese telecommunications company

of £4.1m in OSI shares (approximately 0.7% of the total fund). In September 2023 Ed Bussey was named CEO of the company, and at the same time Jack Edmondson was appointed to the newly created role of CIO.

Structure

OSE is structured differently from other venture capital firms, being an evergreen

patient capital Patient capital is another name for long term capital. With patient capital, the investor is willing to make a financial investment in a business with no expectation of turning a quick profit. Instead, the investor is willing to forgo an immediate ...

, privately held company and not bound by a limited partnership agreement. As such, the company holds long-term investments, pursuing a patient capital model. OSE differentiates itself from classic venture firms because of its relationship with the university. Unlike most university-linked venture firms, Oxford University is a shareholder in the company, with OSE receiving half of the university's stake in the

intellectual property Intellectual property (IP) is a category of property that includes intangible creations of the human intellect. There are many types of intellectual property, and some countries recognize more than others. The best-known types are patents, co ...

of a spinout. OSE works with the university's technology transfer office, Oxford University Innovation, which helps manage the intellectual property and patent estate of the university.

References

{{reflist Venture capital firms of the United Kingdom Companies based in Oxford British companies established in 2015