Unaudited Preliminary Results 2007
25th September
Ipso Ventures plc (AIM: IPS) ("Ipso" or the "Company"), the intellectual property commercialisation company, is pleased to announce its unaudited preliminary results for the year ended 30 April 2007.
Highlights
- Framework agreement with Loughborough University
- Investment in three spin-out companies:
- Intelligent Wound Care Limited from Imperial College - medical devices
- Therakind Limited from The School of Pharmacy - paediatric drug development.
- Wildkey Limited from Oxford Brookes University - educational software tools.
- Admission to AIM in March 2007 raising £4.5 million before expenses
- Management team strengthened
- Cash and short-term investments totalling £4.25 million
Simon Hunt, Chairman of Ipso, said: "Ipso is now well positioned to progress other potential relationships with leading UK and European universities and other establishments where there is scope to commercialise intellectual property.
"The current year has started well. We are actively in discussions with a number of significant universities, as well as pursuing what could be its first spin-out from Loughborough."
Chairman and Chief Executive's Review
Highlights
The year to April 2007 was one of substantial progress for Ipso and one which confirmed our position in the university intellectual property (“IP”) commercialisation sector, following the commencement of our first university framework agreement. We raised our first round of external funding in May 2006 and within the first six months created two spin-outs, one from Imperial College and one from The School of Pharmacy, made an investment in a spin-out from Oxford Brookes and signed our framework agreement with Loughborough University. The Company was admitted to AIM in March 2007 and raised an additional £4.5 million before expenses.
Ipso is now well positioned to progress other potential relationships with leading UK and European universities and other establishments where there is scope to commercialise intellectual property and we are expanding our team to capitalise on this. The executive team has wide experience of the IP commercialisation process, including business creation, development and corporate finance skills, enabling us to build strong spin-out companies, raise further capital and create value through profitable exits. We also place a great deal of emphasis on finding the right management for our spin-out companies at a very early stage in their development. Our team building capability sits at the centre of Ipso’s operations and is led by Simon Haworth.
Success for Ipso will depend on its ability to foster good spin-out prospects from university partners, to identify opportunities from concepts and ideas generated from this research base and to progress those opportunities through to value creation and exit. Whilst we see IPO as one possible exit route for our spin-outs, we believe that the majority are likely to exit through trade sale, an area in which our team has a great deal of expertise and experience.
Loughborough University
On Ipso’s admission to AIM in March 2007, our framework agreement with Loughborough became unconditional, giving us the right of first refusal to invest in all new spin-outs set up solely with Loughborough University IP (other than IP relating to mobile and telecommunications research). Since March, we have been actively working through Loughborough’s strong pipeline of potential spin-out opportunities. We are very pleased with our findings from a variety of areas of research within the university, including renewables, environmental, nanotechnology and materials, software, security and engineering.
There is a strong enterprise culture within Loughborough, generating momentum for commercialisation and spin-out creation. Loughborough’s research is typically “applied and practical”, which creates more near to market opportunities which are ideal for spin-out creation. We are working very closely with Loughborough’s highly experienced enterprise office, as well as meeting academics across the departments, to enhance the pipeline of potential spin-out opportunities.