A fifth investor has joined UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), providing matched funding for top small innovators to develop ideas to help us age more healthily.
The new investor, Nesta, works on three missions:
- a fairer start
- a healthy life
- a sustainable future.
UKRI’s healthy ageing investment partnership combines government funding and private investment in business-led research and development, supporting innovators to produce products and services for healthy ageing that can be adopted at scale.
Vitally, the government contribution de-risks the private sector investment, allowing cutting edge innovation to prosper.
This brings the total funding available under the programme to £18 million of grant funding and £18 million of equity investment available.
Investor partners
Small and medium-sized enterprises can apply through one of two new and three original investor partners. In addition to Nesta, these now include:
- 24 Haymarket
- Barclays Ventures
- Northstar Ventures
- Legal and General.
Nesta’s Chief Investment Officer, Nathan Elstub, said:
We are delighted to be able to work with UKRI to co-invest in the next generation of companies developing new ways of solving the challenge of ageing well.
Their grant funding will enable us to support riskier, more cutting-edge approaches to this challenge and will be a perfect match for the patient capital in our impact investment work.
George MacGinnis, Healthy Ageing Challenge Director at UKRI added:
Nesta’s investment in our partnership programme brings a new dimension to our portfolio with their mission to invest for good. This will broaden the opportunities available to support business growth.
Nesta brings extensive experience of supporting social entrepreneurs to develop sustainable businesses that address some of the toughest challenges faced by an ageing society.