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Parkwalk Advisors (“Parkwalk”) is 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 and Bristol, as well as Imperial College. These partnerships could provide investors with unique access to the spinout sector.
The Parkwalk Knowledge Intensive EIS Fund IV is managed by the same team – and follows the same strategy – as the Opportunities EIS Fund, although it will invest in a minimum of 10 companies.
Parkwalk manages around £500 million across all its funds 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 £467.0 million in 193 companies (December 2024). It has achieved 36 exits, of which 18 profitable (up to 16x), and returned £149.2 million to investors, with a remaining portfolio balance of £434.3 million (December 2024). Past performance is not a guide to the future; there have also been failures.
This is the fourth ‘KI approved fund’ from Parkwalk. As it closes this tax year, investors should be able to obtain tax relief for 2024/25 and have the option to carry back to 2023/24 (tax rules can change and benefits depend on circumstances).
- Approved KI EIS fund
- Target portfolio size of at least 10 companies, deploying investors funds over 12 to 18 months
- Target return is unspecified with an estimated holding period of four to eight years, not guaranteed
- Minimum investment of £25,000
Important: The information on this website is for experienced investors. It is not advice nor a research or 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 around £500 million in assets under management. It was founded in 2009 and in 2017 was acquired by IP Group, a London-listed specialist IP commercialisation company with a market capitalisation of c.£525 million (December 2024) and net assets of £1.1 billion (June 2024). 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 nine 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 – Watch the interview
Investment strategy
Parkwalk’s niche is UK university spinouts. It invests in technology or intellectual property developed within UK universities, helping commercialise academic research.
Parkwalk’s portfolio companies include spinouts from over 20 UK universities. Parkwalk also 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, Cambridge Innovation Capital, Invesco Perpetual, Oxford Sciences Innovation and Schroders.
Parkwalk generally first invests once a company’s 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 £10 million, usually as part of a larger funding round.
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.
Parkwalk may also invest in relatively 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 10 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 193 companies. The current portfolio is weighted towards Digital Health & MedTech, AI, Big Data & Software and Life Sciences.
The three previous Parkwalk Knowledge Intensive Funds have invested in 24 companies to date (December 2024), all of which have also received investment from the Opportunities EIS Fund.
Top 10 sector breakdown by investment cost (%)
Source: Parkwalk, as at October 2024.
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 Southampton
AccelerComm
AccelerComm was founded by Rob Maunder, a professor at the University of Southampton who had the idea of creating a company centred around his wireless communications PhD research team.
AccelerComm has developed products and solutions for 4G and 5G cellular and satellite systems. The technology can double network capacity, halve power consumption and reduce latency compared to alternatives. For example, AccelerComm’s 5G channel coding improves service quality and reduces costs by correcting errors caused by poor signal quality and interference.
Parkwalk invested c.£2.6 million through both its KI and Opportunities EIS funds in May 2023 as part of a £21.5 million funding round at a post money valuation of £42 million.
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.
The Parkwalk Opportunities Fund invested £1.5 million in February 2024 as part of a £3.5 million funding round.
Spinout from the University of Southampton (example of previous exit)
Lumenisity
Lumenisity span out from the Optoelectronics Research Centre at the University of Southampton in 2017.
It developed and commercialised high-bandwidth, low-latency hollowcore fibre (HCF) which can be applied in large-scale communication networks to help improve security and reduce loss of data over longer distances.
The Parkwalk Opportunities fund first invested in September 2019 as part of a £15.8 million investment round. In December 2022 Lumenisity was acquired by Microsoft. The sale delivered returns of up to 4.7x and generated proceeds of over £15 million for Parkwalk investors. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
Example of previous failure
Undo Limited
Undo Ltd was a University of Cambridge spin-out which developed a product to resolve software bugs that had proven impossible or impractical to resolve using other developer tools. The company had several blue-chip clients upon which to build its revenue base and was extending its product into the Java environment.
Unfortunately, sales conversion and product development were slower than anticipated and an extension funding round was undertaken in 2019, followed during the pandemic by a government Future Fund convertible loan investment. The company made progress developing its main product and grew revenues by over 30% per annum but required further funding in 2021 which it was unable to secure.
A rescue buyout was finalised in August 2022, with the value of Parkwalk’s stake written off.
Performance
Across its portfolio of 193 companies, Parkwalk EIS funds have achieved 29 full exits, seven partial exits and 35 write-offs. Exit multiples have ranged from 0.1x to 16x, with 18 profitable full exits. In aggregate, the Parkwalk EIS and KI funds have invested £467.0 million, generated realised returns of £149.2 million and have a portfolio balance of £434.3 million (December 2024).
The first chart below shows the average performance of the total subscribed into the Parkwalk Opportunities Funds each in each full of the last 10 full tax years (or from when the current strategy was adopted if later). The second shows the performance of the three previous Parkwalk Knowledge Intensive Funds.
The charts are 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 per £100 invested per tax year
Source: Parkwalk Ventures, as at December 2024. 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, for a knowledge intensive EIS fund you will need an EIS5 certificate. Certificates can be issued once the fund has invested 90% of its capital, which it is required to do within 24 months of the close. Tax reliefs depend on the portfolio companies maintaining their EIS-qualifying status. For capital gains tax deferral and inheritance tax relief the investment date is when the capital is invested in each company, not the fund close date. 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%). These are paid by the provider – there is no additional cost to you.
Any charges deducted from the subscription 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 applies on returns in excess of £1 per £1 invested. Whilst not uncommon among EIS funds, this is a low hurdle. Performance fees are calculated on a portfolio basis.
Other changes apply. Please see the provider’s documents, including the Key Information Document, for more details.
Our view
Parkwalk has 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 companies with access to the pools of liquidity needed to commercialise their intellectual property and potentially provide EIS investors with an additional route to exit, although this is not guaranteed.
Compared with the Parkwalk Opportunities EIS Fund, the EIS KI Fund provides investors with greater clarity on the timing of income tax relief, a single tax certificate, and greater diversification (it targets a minimum of 10 investee companies, compared to eight in the Opportunities EIS fund).
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 28 January 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.