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.
Estimated reading time: 2 min
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 18 months |
| Next deadline: | Discretionary |
Important documents
| Sector: | University spinouts |
|---|---|
| Target return: | Unspecified |
| Minimum investment: | £25,000 |
| Targeted allotment: | 12 to 18 months |
| Next deadline: | Discretionary |
Important documents
The Parkwalk Opportunities EIS Fund is managed by Parkwalk Advisors (“Parkwalk”), one of the UK's most active investors in university spinouts. It has strong ties to the UK’s leading universities, managing funds in conjunction with the tech-transfer departments of the Universities of Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College, and Bristol. These partnerships could provide investors with unique access to the spinout sector.
Parkwalk has more than £500 million of assets under management and benefits from being part of IP Group plc, a FTSE 250-listed asset manager focused on intellectual property commercialisation.
Across its EIS funds, Parkwalk has to date invested £483.4 million in 200 companies (June 2025). It has achieved 39 exits (up to 16x), and returned £165.8 million to investors, with a remaining portfolio balance of £411.9 million (June 2025). After June, the funds achieved two additional exits. Past performance is not a guide to the future; there have also been failures.
- Aims to be fully invested within 12 to 18 months, not guaranteed
- Target return is unspecified
- Estimated holding period of four to eight years, not guaranteed
- Target portfolio size of at least eight companies
- Minimum investment of £25,000 – you can apply online
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
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 £952.5 million (March 2025) and a market capitalisation of £482.2 million (June 2025). IP Group also acquired Touchstone Innovations, a commercialisation company with close links to Imperial College and University College London.
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 founder 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 Unitas Limited. After investment, shares will be held by the nominee, MNL (Parkwalk) Nominees Limited.
Meet the manager
Anne Dobrée, Parkwalk Advisors
Investment strategy
Parkwalk’s niche is UK university spinouts. It invests in technology or intellectual property developed by UK universities, helping inventors and the universities themselves commercialise their research.
Parkwalk’s portfolio companies include spinouts from 20 universities across the UK. In addition to the Opportunities EIS fund, Parkwalk manages funds in conjunction with the technology transfer departments of the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford, Imperial College and the University of Bristol. Parkwalk typically co-invests alongside large investors, including Amadeus Capital, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Invesco Perpetual, Oxford Sciences Innovation and Schroders.
Parkwalk generally first invests in a company at the stage where its technology has been proven, but products have yet to be sold, and well before commercialisation. A typical initial investment is £1 million to £1.5 million for a 15–20% stake in a business. Later investments may be £2 million to £20 million, usually as part of a larger funding round.
Portfolio companies will typically have deeply embedded IP and are given the freedom to operate. Parkwalk will usually seek experienced, relevant management with the skills necessary to commercialise the product. However, investee companies don’t always have to be early stage. Parkwalk will also invest in later-stage companies, perhaps just before an AIM listing.
While the fund's target return is unspecified, Parkwalk seeks companies it believes could potentially deliver five times the original investment – not guaranteed.
Portfolio
Each investor is expected to have a portfolio of at least eight early-stage, EIS qualifying, technology companies, with a mix of different technologies and stages of maturity (from Series A to Series C), although this is not guaranteed.
Since launch, Parkwalk has invested in 200 companies. The current portfolio is weighted towards Digital Health & MedTech, AI, Life Sciences, and Hardware.
Top 10 sector breakdown by investment cost (%)
Source: Parkwalk, as at June 2025.
Below are portfolio company examples from previous iterations of the EIS fund. 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 Oxford
Opsydia
Opsydia has developed laser technology able to write intricate, sub-surface features and functionalities in transparent materials like diamonds, glass, and polymers, with a range of industrial applications. For instance, the technology can be used to create secure, untamperable Nano IDs for diamond security and traceability.
The company was spun out in 2017, based on the research of two University of Oxford engineering professors, and uses adaptive optics to shape light beams dynamically. This can help prevent distortions, improve accuracy and reduce errors.
Originally targeting the gem traceability market, the company now focuses on the photonics sector, with potential applications including data communications, quantum computing, and semiconductor interconnects.
The Parkwalk Opportunities Fund invested in April 2025 as part of a £2.5 million funding round alongside the University of Oxford Innovation Fund and the Foresight Group.
Spinout from the University of Leeds
Adsilico
Bringing a new medical device to market can take years – it’s 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 University of Cambridge (example of previous exit)
Cytora
Founded in 2012, Cytora helps insurers better understand and measure risk.
Its core technology, the Cytora Risk Engine, applies artificial intelligence to customer data to identify patterns of good and bad risk. This helps insurers more accurately select, price, and manage risk, leading to improved underwriting performance and fairer pricing for customers.
The company was initially incubated at Accelerate Cambridge, an 11-week venture programme within the Cambridge Cluster. Following this, the company became the first start-up from the incubator to receive funding from University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School.
Parkwalk first backed the company in 2015, alongside the University of Cambridge and angel investors. Parkwalk continued to support it through several further rounds, including a £25 million Series B in 2019 alongside EQT Ventures and Cambridge Innovation Capital.
In September 2025, Cytora was acquired by Applied Systems, a technology and software provider for the insurance sector. The exit delivered returns of 1.7x-13.8x for Parkwalk investors, depending on the tranche. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
Previous failure
Predictimmune
Predictimmune was a molecular diagnostics company, which developed a novel blood test to predict at an early stage the progression of inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and the risk of it turning into severe Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis. It was spun-out from the University of Cambridge, and Parkwalk first invested in 2017.
Predictimmune suffered from Covid-related dealys in its clinical trials for new diagnostic products and commercial progress for its existing products was slow, leading the company to scale-down its operations and impairing its ability to raise further funds.
The company began a solvent wind down procedure and a liquidator was appointed in February 2024, with Parkwalk’s investments being written off.
Performance
In aggregate, the Parkwalk EIS and KI funds have invested £483.4 million in 200 companies and achieved 39 full and partial exits and 35 write offs generating realised returns of £165.8 million, with a remaining portfolio balance of £411.9 million (June 2025). Exit multiples have ranged from 0.1x to 16x. After June, the funds achieved two additional exits, one partial, one full, including Cytora (mentioned above).
The chart below shows the average performance of the total subscribed into the Parkwalk Opportunities EIS Funds in each of the last 10 full tax years (or from when the current strategy was adopted if later).
The chart is based on the latest valuations provided by the manager, expressed on a £100 invested basis. Please note, individual investor portfolios’ performance will deviate from the average.
Performance of Parkwalk EIS funds per £100 invested in each tax year
Source: Parkwalk, as at July 2025. Past performance is not a guide to future performance. The chart shows realised returns (where share proceeds have been returned to investors as cash) and unrealised returns (where cash has not yet been returned and the value of the investments is based on the manager’s own valuation methodology). There is no ready market for unlisted shares. The figures shown are net of all fees and do not include any income tax relief or loss relief.
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 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 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 EIS holding period; equally, an exit within three years could impact tax relief.
To claim tax relief, you will need EIS3 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-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 (2.5%) 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
The Parkwalk EIS funds have a clear investment strategy in a defined area: university spinouts.
The investment team has plenty of experience in this field, and Parkwalk’s standing in the industry could allow access to opportunities other managers would be hard-pressed to access. Investors have historically been well rewarded for supporting this high-risk area of the market, although past performance is not a guide to the future.
Parkwalk’s links to the UK’s leading universities and large institutional investors, such as parent company IP Group plc, set it apart from many other EIS funds. These could provide investee companies with access to the pools of liquidity needed to commercialise their intellectual property and EIS investors with an additional route to exit, although this is not guaranteed.
In our view, this is a high-quality EIS fund within an exciting and hard-to-reach sector. However, the focus on intellectual property means these investments are typically very early stage and high risk.
This financial promotion has been communicated and approved by Wealth Club Ltd on 18 September 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.