Don't invest unless you’re prepared to lose all the money you invest. This is a high-risk investment and you are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong. Take 2 mins to learn more.
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Due to the potential for losses, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) considers this investment to be high risk.
What are the key risks?
- You could lose all the money you invest
- If the business you invest in fails, you are likely to lose 100% of the money you invested. Most start-up businesses fail.
- You are unlikely to be protected if something goes wrong
- Protection from the Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS), in relation to claims against failed regulated firms, does not cover poor investment performance. Try the FSCS investment protection checker here.
- Protection from the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS) does not cover poor investment performance. If you have a complaint against an FCA-regulated firm, FOS may be able to consider it. Learn more about FOS protection here.
- You won’t get your money back quickly
- Even if the business you invest in is successful, it may take several years to get your money back. You are unlikely to be able to sell your investment early.
- The most likely way to get your money back is if the business is bought by another business or lists its shares on an exchange such as the London Stock Exchange. These events are not common.
- If you are investing in a start-up business, you should not expect to get your money back through dividends. Start-up businesses rarely pay these.
- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
- Putting all your money into a single business or type of investment for example, is risky. Spreading your money across different investments makes you less dependent on any one to do well.
- A good rule of thumb is not to invest more than 10% of your money in high-risk investments.
- The value of your investment can be reduced
- The percentage of the business that you own will decrease if the business issues more shares. This could mean that the value of your investment reduces, depending on how much the business grows. Most start-up businesses issue multiple rounds of shares.
- These new shares could have additional rights that your shares don’t have, such as the right to receive a fixed dividend, which could further reduce your chances of getting a return on your investment.
If you are interested in learning more about how to protect yourself, visit the FCA’s website here.
| Sector: | University spinouts |
|---|---|
| Target return: | Unspecified |
| Minimum investment: | £25,000 |
| Targeted allotment: | 12 to 24 months |
| Next deadline: | 30 Sep 2025 |
Important documents
| Sector: | University spinouts |
|---|---|
| Target return: | Unspecified |
| Minimum investment: | £25,000 |
| Targeted allotment: | 12 to 24 months |
| Next deadline: | 30 Sep 2025 |
Important documents
£500k exclusive allocation for Wealth Club investors
The Northern Universities Venture Fund is the first partnership between Parkwalk Advisors (‘Parkwalk’), one of the UK’s most active investors in university spinouts, and Northern Gritstone (‘NG’), a specialist investor with preferred access to opportunities from the Universities of Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, and Liverpool.
These institutions have a strong track record of producing world-class research, with 46 Nobel Prizes between them, and of forming university spinouts.
While this is a new fund, NG and Parkwalk have deep sector expertise, with the latter having run similar strategies for Imperial College London and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Bristol.
- Target return is unspecified
- Estimated holding period of four to eight years, not guaranteed
- Target portfolio size of 5-10 EIS companies, with expected deployment in 12 to 24 months
- Potential for a smaller allocation to SEIS
- Minimum investment of £25,000 – you can apply online
- Deadline: 30 September 2025
Important: The information on this website is for experienced investors. It is not a personal recommendation to invest. If you’re unsure, please seek advice. Investments are for the long term. They are high risk and illiquid and can fall as well as rise in value: you could lose all the money you invest.
The manager
The fund is a collaboration between Parkwalk Advisors and Northern Gritstone.
Parwalk
Parkwalk Advisors is a specialist university spinout investor with £500 million assets under management. It was founded in 2009 and since 2017 has been part of IP Group, a leading intellectual property commercialisation company with net assets of £953 million (December 2024) and a market capitalisation of £482 million (June 2025).
The combined group gives Parkwalk a strong hand when accessing deal flow and negotiating terms, as well as providing a possible exit route for investors.
The investment team consists of eight investment professionals including founders Moray Wright and Alastair Kilgour. The team has experience across banking, fund management, start-ups, venture capital, and drug development.
Before your subscription is invested, the cash will be held by the custodian, Apex United Limited. Shares will be held by the nominee, MNL (Parkwalk) Nominees Limited.
Northern Gritstone
Northern Gritstone was founded in 2021 by the Universities of Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield to support the commercialisation of science and IP-rich businesses originating from these three institutions. In 2025, NG announced a multi-year partnership agreement with the University of Liverpool.
All four are part of the prestigious Russell Group, a collection of universities recognised for their intensive research. Together, these universities – commonly knows as the ‘Northern Arc’ – are responsible for around one in every 10 patents filed by UK universities and have launched 242 spinouts since 2011 – when rankings began – representing over 10% of all UK university spinouts.
NG works closely with the universities’ technology transfer offices to support commercialisation, gaining preferred access to deal flow, now shared with Parkwalk. Since launch, NG has invested in 32 companies.
Meet the manager
Anne Dobrée, Parkwalk Advisors
Investment strategy
The fund is expected to follow a similar strategy to that of the funds Parkwalk runs in conjunction with Imperial College London and the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge, and Bristol.
The Northern Universities Venture Fund aims to co-invest alongside NG in five to 10 early-stage, high-growth, research intensive companies with strong connections to the Northern Arc Universities. These could include companies commercialising academic research, deep science businesses developed by students or emerging from the wider ecosystem. Companies may cover a wide range of sectors such as quantum computing, AI, engineering biology, semiconductors, and future telecoms.
Parkwalk generally makes its first investment once a company’s technology has been proven but before any products are sold, and well before commercialisation. After a spinout is formed, Parkwalk and NG work together to support it through accelerator programs, access to talent networks and business support services.
The manager has not specified a target return.
Portfolio
While the fund is new, both Parkwalk and NG have a history of investing in spinouts from the four universities and have co-invested in one deal, adsilico (see below).
The fund will target a portfolio of 5-10 companies, with deployment expected to take 12 to 24 months, not guaranteed. The portfolio will consider EIS-qualifying startups and later-stage companies, with the potential for a smaller allocation to SEIS.
Below are examples of spinouts from Northern Arc universities previously backed by Parkwalk. They are outlined to give a flavour of the types of companies you might expect but are unlikely to be part of a new investor’s portfolio.
Spinout from the University of Leeds
adsilico
Bringing a new medical device to market is a costly and lengthy process.
To address this, medical device developers are increasingly using “in silico trials”, where a device’s safety and performance are assessed before human clinical trials through computational models and simulation.
adsilico, which was spun out of the University of Leeds in 2022, has developed technology to facilitate this. Its ground-breaking technique combines multiple data sources and uses generative AI to create “virtual twins” of trial participants. The models can create specific virtual conditions or specific groups of people, including vulnerable groups, such as pregnant women, who do not take part in real-life medical trials.
The company believes this will allow medical device manufacturers to accelerate R&D, reduce the need for animal experimentation, and augment costly human trials.
adsilico raised £3.5 million from Northern Gritstone and Parkwalk in February 2024, with Parkwalk investing £1.5 million.
Spinout from Sheffield University
Wayland Additive
A spinout from Sheffield University, Wayland Additive (‘Wayland’) designs and develops advanced 3D printing machines.
The team has used its semiconductor engineering background to apply electron beam technology – a high precision form of welding commonly used in the semiconductor industry – to advanced materials.
Wayland’s ‘NueBeam’ technology makes the electron beam more stable and accurate, even at very high temperatures. This helps reduce errors and allows application across a variety of sectors, including medical implants, fusion reactors, and aerospace. For instance, the Royal Air Force is using Wayland’s technology to design and produce aircraft spares on demand.
Parkwalk first invested in 2021, alongside long-term backer Longwall Ventures and the UK government’s National Security Strategy Investment Fund (NSSIF). Since then, it has taken part in three more funding rounds, investing a total of £8.1 million. The holding is currently valued at £10.5 million. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
Example of previous exit
Tracsis
Tracsis was spun out from the University of Leeds in 2004.
Traditionally, creating transport labour schedules has been a complicated, manual task, balancing factors like driver route knowledge and station timetables with unpredictable changes such as bad weather or engineering works.
Tracsis’ software models all these variables and produces optimised schedules, helping rail networks run more smoothly. Over time, the company has expanded into new areas, including condition monitoring (which detects potential infrastructure issues before they become a costly failure) and ticketing and payment software.
Today, Tracsis solutions are used by virtually all UK train operators.
Parkwalk invested £350,000 in May 2011 and sold its full position when the company listed on AIM in 2014. This delivered a 6.9x return on cost for the EIS Fund – past performance is not a guide to the future.
Example of previous failure
Arvia Technology
As with any early-stage investment, not all will work out. One such example is Arvia Technology (‘Arvia’).
Arvia, a spinout from the University of Manchester, sought to reduce pollution from wastewater streams.
The company was making progress in the water security and safety sectors but had yet to achieve commercialisation when it was impacted by both Brexit and the Covid-19 pandemic. As a result, the management team was unable to raise the necessary investment for the company to continue. An administrator was appointed and the company’s assets were sold with no return to investors.
The Parkwalk Opportunities Fund had invested a total of £5.7 million.
Performance
While this is a new fund, Parkwalk has previously invested £24.3 million into nine companies across the four universities. Two were successful exits, returning £5.3 million (around 2x return), four have failed and the remaining investments are currently valued at £13.2 million against an investment cost of £11.2 million. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
Risks – important
This, like all investments available through Wealth Club, is only for experienced investors happy to make their own investment decisions without advice.
EIS/SEIS investments are high-risk and should only form part of a balanced portfolio. As must be expected with early-stage investments, some or even all of the companies in the portfolio could fail: the fewer the companies included in the portfolio, the higher the risk of loss if things don’t go to plan. You should not invest money you cannot afford to lose.
There is no ready market for unlisted EIS/SEIS shares: they are illiquid and hard to sell and value. There will need to be an exit for you to receive a realised return on your investment. Exits are likely to take considerably longer than the three-year minimum holding period; equally, an exit within three years could impact tax relief.
To claim tax relief, you will need EIS3/SEIS3 certificates, normally issued once shares have been allotted. This can take several months: please check the deployment timescales carefully. Tax reliefs depend on the portfolio companies maintaining their EIS/SEIS-qualifying status. Remember, tax rules can change and benefits depend on circumstances.
Before you invest, please carefully read the Risks and Commitments and the offer documents to ensure you fully understand the risks.
The manager believes that if a company fails, the intellectual property it owns could still have some resale value, but there are no guarantees.
Charges
A summary of the main charges and savings is shown below. Some of these will be payable by the investor, whilst others by the investee companies. The investment may have additional charges and expenses: please see the provider documents, including the Key Information Document, for more details.
| Investor charges | |
|---|---|
| Initial charge | 5% |
| Annual management charge | 1.5% |
| Administration charge | 0.25% |
| Dealing charge | 0.20% |
| Performance fee | 20% |
| Investee company charges | |
| Initial charge | — |
| Annual charges | — |
The fees and charges above are stated exclusive of VAT, which applies in some cases, as determined by the manager. Please check the VAT position carefully in the provider documents. Any fees and charges payable by the investee companies or the underlying businesses do not directly come out of your investment. However, they will effectively reduce the returns generated by investee companies and therefore impact your investment.
More detail on the charges
When you invest through us, Wealth Club will receive initial commission (3.0%) and trail commission (0%) paid by the provider – there is no additional cost to you.
Investor charges may be deducted from the subscription. This will reduce the amount invested and on which tax relief can be claimed.
Any investee company charges are levied on the underlying companies. They will not affect the amount of tax relief available but can still impact investor returns.
The performance fee applies on returns in excess of £1.00 per £1 invested. Whilst not uncommon among EIS funds, this is a low hurdle. Performance fees are calculated on a portfolio basis.
Other charges apply. Please see the provider’s documents, including the Key Information Document, for more details.
Our view
This is the first EIS fund launched in collaboration between Parkwalk and NG. It offers investors access to spinouts from four leading research universities, with a portfolio selected and managed by the UK’s top university spinout investor.
While this is a new strategy, Parkwalk has previously invested in a handful of companies from the Northern Arc universities, including two successful exits. Please note, there have also been failures.
By combining Parkwalk’s sector experience with NG’s deal flow and long-term university partnerships, the fund provides a differentiated route to spinout exposure, beyond the traditional Oxbridge and London focus.
This financial promotion has been communicated and approved by Wealth Club Ltd on 28 July 2025
Wealth Club aims to make it easier for experienced investors to find information on – and apply for – investments. You should base your investment decision on the offer documents and ensure you have read and fully understand them before investing. The information on this webpage is a marketing communication. It is not advice or a personal or research recommendation to buy any of the investments mentioned, nor does it include any opinion as to the present or future value or price of these investments. It does not satisfy legal requirements promoting investment research independence and is thus not subject to prohibitions on dealing ahead of its dissemination.