New: Parkwalk’s profitable EIS exit of Cytora, delivering returns of up to 13.8x
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Spinout-specialist Parkwalk Advisors has announced its profitable exit of risk-assessment AI platform Cytora. Cytora was acquired by Applied Systems, a global technology and software provider to the insurance sector. The exit has delivered returns of between 1.7x and 13.8x (depending on tranche) for Parkwalk and the investors in its EIS funds – including Wealth Club investors. Past performance is not a guide to the future.
This is Parkwalk’s fifth profitable realisation in 2025. In total its exits delivered nearly £60 million in returns to investors this year.
Parkwalk first backed the company in 2015, alongside the University of Cambridge and angel investors. It continued to support it through several further rounds – including a £25 million Series B in 2019, alongside EQT Ventures and Cambridge Innovation Capital. Parkwalk was Cytora’s largest shareholder, prior to its acquisition by Applied Systems.
How can Cytora’s AI technology help the insurance industry? Why did Parkwalk invest – and how might you invest in similar companies?
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. These investments are for the long term. They are high risk and can fall as well as rise in value: you could lose all the money you invest. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on circumstances. Quotes in the article represent the views of those quoted and not necessarily those of Wealth Club.
What does Cytora do?
Founded in 2012, Cytora aims to help commercial insurers transition to digital workflows and risk-assessment.
The company was initially incubated at Accelerate Cambridge, an 11-week venture programme within the Cambridge Cluster. The cluster, often referred to as “Silicon Fen”, is a leading tech ecosystem comprised of top universities Oxford and Cambridge, and businesses like Amazon, Apple, Arm and AstraZeneca. Cytora went on to become the first startup to receive funding from Cambridge Judge Business School.
Cytora has created an AI-enabled “risk digitisation” platform that integrates with existing systems in the insurance industry, such as policy administration and rating engines.
Cytora’s proprietary Risk Engine helps identify patterns of good and bad risk over time. This enables insurers to more accurately select, price and manage risk – so as to improve underwriting performance and offer fairer pricing for customers.
At the same time, the platform’s AI tools can convert information received by the insurer – from insurance forms and other documents, even emails and images – into data that can be used for underwriting, assessing claims and so on. This aims to help insurers save time and cost in handling submissions and policy servicing – and so process higher volumes of business more efficiently.
Cytora already works with several insurance carriers – and reports it has helped them reduce the time to quote from weeks to hours, cut operational costs, and take on more profitable risks.
Why did Parkwalk invest?
Parkwalk is one of the UK's most active spinout investors, with strong ties to the UK’s leading universities. It manages more than £500 million of assets and benefits from being part of IP Group plc, a FTSE 250-listed asset manager focused on intellectual property commercialisation.
In addition to its own EIS funds, Parkwalk manages 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 looks to back innovative university spinouts on their journey from lab to market – those with talented management teams, trusted co-investors and market-leading IP. Generally, it first invests when the company’s technology has been proven, but products have yet to be sold, and well before commercialisation. The manager considers Cytora a good example of such a company in its AI & DeepTech portfolio.
It’s great to see a UK DeepTech firm actually delivering value and innovation through an LLM-powered platform which is enabling fast and scalable enterprise deployment without training, driving improvement of risk understanding, risk management and risk pricing across the insurance industry.
How might you invest in similar companies?
The Parkwalk Opportunities EIS Fund is currently open for investment, targeting allotment in 12-18 months – not guaranteed. The fund has a discretionary deadline – you can apply online.
Investors should be able to claim up to 30% income tax relief in the allotment tax year, or carry back the relief to the previous tax yea. Tax rules can change and benefits depend on circumstances.
The fund seeks to back and help commercialise technology or intellectual property developed by UK universities – particularly Oxford, Cambridge, Bristol and Imperial College.
Each investor might expect a portfolio of at least eight early-stage, EIS qualifying, technology companies – a mix of different technologies and stages of maturity (from Series A to Series C), although this is not guaranteed. The current portfolio is weighted towards Digital Health & MedTech, Life Sciences, Hardware and AI Big Data & Software. The target return is not specified.
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.
See performance of Parkwalk Opportunities EIS Fund
Performance of Parkwalk Opportunities EIS Fund per £100
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.
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.
Alex Davies
Chief Executive
Alex was a board director at Hargreaves Lansdown, where he worked for 15 years. He was responsible for building Hargreaves Lansdown into the biggest direct-to-consumer SIPP provider in the UK with more than 150,000 clients and over £12 billion under management. He is a keen investor with a portfolio of shares, funds, student property, EIS and VCT investments.