Sharing the Science Creates Vision

Dr Harry Destecroix CEO at Science Creates and General Partner at Science Creates Ventures

I am delighted to announce the launch of Science Creates; the new ecosystem that will drive deep tech forwards in Bristol. It will provide the incubators, network and investment needed to allow the sector to expand on  the rapid growth of the last five years through three clear channels:

Science Creates Incubators

In partnership with the University of Bristol and Research England, our two central Bristol incubators, at St Phillips and soon at Old Street (currently under construction) offer 45,000 sq. ft of laboratory, office and event space for deep tech start-ups. We designed our incubators for scientists and engineers using input from our own experiences working in laboratories. Our specialist in-house team designed, developed and run our incubators.

Science Creates Network

The Science Creates Network is made up of our member deep tech companies and our partnerships with local academic institutions, entrepreneurs, investors and strategic service providers. As sector specialists, we know that deep tech businesses need the right equipment, mentors and advisors with specific, relevant experience. The breadth and depth of these circles of expertise continue to grow and flourish, creating a connected community of support that adds value to our member deep tech companies and a sustainable platform for teams that partner with Science Creates in the future.

Science Creates Ventures

With the growth of our ecosystem, we identified the need for investment to help companies scale up. This is why we are launching Science Creates Ventures, to aim to deliver mould-breaking investment funds. Science Creates Ventures EIS Fund 1 focuses on deep tech start-ups at pre-seed and seed levels. The fund will aim to provide essential funding to the Bristol region and seek to help ambitious companies in a variety of sectors including therapeutics, diagnostics, advanced materials, hardware and software.

Run exclusively by proven founders who combine deep technical knowledge with extensive commercialisation expertise. Science Creates Ventures will invest in technologies that have the potential to improve healthcare, quality of life, and the environment around us.

Science Creates Outreach

To date, we have had 1,500 schoolchildren visit our first incubator through our Outreach programme. We create a unique learning environment with immersive tours, hands-on workshops and interactive lessons with scientists. This will expand with a dedicated outreach lab space at Old Street which means that once the building is full, we will still have a space to welcome local learners.

Our mission is to provide an ecosystem of incubators, investment and a network that enables scientific discoveries to have real, global impact.

We are excited to share the next step in Bristol’s deep tech journey with you.

Professor Hugh Brady Vice-Chancellor and President at the University of Bristol

The University of Bristol is ranked among the world’s leading research-intensive universities. Our research has global academic impact, and our researchers are amongst the most cited in the world. But we want our research to have economic and social impact too.

As an institution, we strive to embed entrepreneurial thinking in our staff and students – to be a beacon of good practice in innovation and enterprise, and a sector leader in terms of our ability to establish and maintain productive collaborations that benefit us all.

This ambition is personified by the strength of our partnership with Science Creates.

It has been tremendously exciting to be part of Unit DX’s success story. I distinctly remember walking around Unit DX with Harry Destecroix, its CEO and Co-Founder, as the finishing touches were being put to the new facility – itself striking for its innovative design. The ambition was palpable and infectious!

Over the ensuing three years, Unit DX has had a profound impact on Bristol’s innovation ecosystem, helping to foster an environment that supports scientists, engineers and entrepreneurs to transform cutting-edge research into next generation technologies and applications.

One of the first companies to move to Unit DX was Ziylo – a University of Bristol spin-out whose struggle to find lab space inspired the creation of Unit DX. In 2018, Ziylo was acquired by Novo Nordisk in a staged deal worth a potential $800 million. The sale has put Bristol on the map and attracted substantial additional investment to the sector.

This was a huge success for the Ziylo team, and it was by no means the only such success to emerge from Unit DX. Today, 60 percent of the companies it hosts are University of Bristol spinouts. Their future success is also a success for our city, and for the University’s drive to maximise the impact of our research.

It also supports the University’s commitment to delivering public good for the people of Bristol, including contributing towards our city’s economic health and prosperity.

Looking to the future,   This means building on the success of initiatives like Unit DX to bring scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and investors together, harnessing our city’s wonderful diversity, stimulating more enterprise activity and supporting new business creation. 

The challenge now is to continue nurturing a supportive environment that attracts the best talent, facilitates new forms of partnership between industry and academia, sparks new conversations and ideas, and joins up our region’s existing strengths and innovation capabilities so that, collectively, they achieve global significance.

The University’s new Temple Quarter Enterprise Campus, sitting at the heart of the Temple Quarter regeneration area, will be geared towards helping the city achieve these objectives, and helping us to reimagine our future as one of the world’s great civic universities.

Together with Science Creates, we will enable new ideas to flourish, support innovation at scale and help our city realise its potential as a global leader in science, research, innovation and enterprise development.

It’s been an exciting five years and much has been achieved. As we start the next phase of our partnership, I have no doubt it will continue to go from strength to strength.

The sections of this website which constitute a financial promotion are approved by Kin Capital Partners LLP (“Kin Capital”) for the purposes of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000. Science Creates Ventures (FRN: 933134) is an Appointed Representative of Kin Capital Partners LLP (trading as Kin Fund Services) which is authorised and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FRN: 656789). Science Creates Incubators is a trading style of Unit DX Ltd (Company number 09985771). Unit DX Ltd does not undertake activities subject to FCA Regulation. Investment are not suitable for all investors. Our investments place your capital at risk and the value of them may go down as well as up. and investors may lose all funds invested. Investments in unquoted early stage/small companies and funds that invest in these smaller companies are high risk and no established market exists for the trading of shares in such companies, making it difficult to sell shares. As such, investors should not invest if likely to require the capital in the near term. Neither past performance nor forecasts are reliable indicators of future results and should not be relied upon. We recommend you seek independent advice before investing. Tax reliefs are dependent on personal circumstances, and are subject to change in the future. The availability of tax reliefs depends on companies invested in maintaining their qualifying status.