Our Seed Fund builds on 25 years of creating and building successful start-ups. It is a £15m investment commitment from Cancer Research UK, managed by our dedicated Ventures team, to help bridge one of the most challenging stages of start-up creation: attracting early-stage risk capital.

Far too many of the breakthroughs still stall in their early stages due to a funding gap between cutting-edge academic cancer research and a start-up becoming ready for scale-up investment. We invest in promising, early-stage opportunities, sourced from the 4,000 researchers we fund in the UK, and globally through our Cancer Grand Challenges programme, our global partnerships, and the wider research community.

Through this fund we can provide early-stage capital and venture creation support including entrepreneurial training, commercial advice, support with intellectual property, access to experts, mentors and management teams. We also catalyse co-investment to maximise the chances of start-ups becoming financially attractive to investors and benefiting cancer patients.