Podcast: The USIT Guide in International Perspective
An exciting panel of speakers from leading US and UK venture capital firms and technology transfer offices came together in London to discuss the origins, merits and impact of international initiatives to support university-investor negotiations leading to investments in spin-outs. Listen to the podcast of this event brought to you by Global University Venturing.
In June, we had the pleasure to welcome an exciting panel of speakers from leading US and UK venture capital firms and technology transfer offices in London to discuss the origins, merits and impact of international initiatives to support university-investor negotiations leading to investments in spin-outs.
Chaired by Professor Andy Neely OBE, Senior Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Enterprise and Business Relations, University of Cambridge, the panel featured (pictured in order):
Maina Bhaman, Partner, Sofinnova Partners,
Orin Herskowitz, Executive Director, Columbia Technology Ventures,
Jim Wilkinson, CFO, Oxford Sciences Enterprises,
Karin Immergluck, Associate Vice Provost, Stanford University,
George Baxter, CEO, Edinburgh Innovations, and
Anne Lane, CEO, UCL Business.
The USIT Guide is the result of the first successful attempt to convene leading UK universities and investors outside of the negotiating table. It draws on decades of experience from organisations that have completed hundreds of these deals across numerous industries, and makes the benefit of their experience available for all. It offers consistent and transparent recommendations to minimise transaction costs and to simplify complex negotiations. In so doing, it will help accelerate deals and strengthen the ability of university entrepreneurs to create transformational businesses.
The USIT Guide builds on the example of TenU member Orin Herskowitz of Columbia University, who convened a series of roundtable meetings with US universities and life science investors to create a common term sheet designed to accelerate US university spin-out licensing deals, US-BOLT. TenU, in line with its goal of learning from international best practice, decided to test this approach in the UK.
In this podcast, university and investors who contributed to both the UK and US initiatives, discuss motivations, challenges, and why speed is more important than perfection.
