Cambridge adds global investors to strengthen its Innovation Hub Global Advisory Board

The Innovation Hub aims to transform the UK’s ability to scale world leading deep tech and life science companies. 

The new board members, Megan Quinn, Jason Pontin, Riyad Daud and Gilman Louie bring a broad range of expertise spanning investment, finance and venture funding, reinforcing the Hub’s international reach and commercial capability. 

Working with Pascal as chair, the Board will ensure the Innovation Hub is not just a building, but a magnet to attract three stakeholder communities:

• Top entrepreneurs at the commercialisation stage must want to compete to opt in to the national innovation community the Hub is convening.
• Bona fide, vetted, global professional VC investors must want to opt in to gain access to those entrepreneurs.
• The Hub itself must embrace collaboration through the inclusion of multiple centres of research excellence in universities across the entire UK. This demands a robust and scalable database powering the magnet.

What the new board members mean for the Innovation Hub 

Professor John Aston, Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research at Cambridge University, said, “The UK has a unique opportunity to not just nurture, but to invest in its exceptional research base to build globally significant companies rooted in and contributing to the UK’s economic growth. The four new appointments’ deep investment expertise and track record of scaling innovative businesses will bring valuable insight to the board’s ability to deliver on this ambition.”

Pascal Levensohn, Chair of the Innovation Hub Advisory Board, said, “The Cambridge Innovation Hub will catalyse an interconnected national network of centres of excellence, bringing greater economic benefits to the nation. These Advisory Board appointments strengthen our ability to connect top entrepreneurs with international institutional investors seeking commercialisation stage companies.”

The new board members of Cambridge’s Innovation Hub Global Advisory Board

Megan Quinn serves on the boards of Autotrader, Oxford University Press, Handshake, Niantic Spatial, and Pendo. She has extensive operating experience in scaling startups and is a former partner at US VC firms Kleiner Perkins and Spark Capital.

Jason Pontin is a General Partner at DCVC.  He specializes in computational biology and chemistry companies focused on accelerating scientific discovery and tackling complex global challenges. London-born and Oxford-educated, he combines a frontier-science investment focus with two decades shaping the global technology conversation as former Editor-in-Chief of MIT Technology Review.

Riyad Daud is Managing Director of a London based single family office investing across alternative assets in global markets. He brings the long-term perspective of global private capital, allocating patient family-office investment across alternative assets and international markets.

Gilman Louie is Co-Founder and Managing Partner of America’s Frontier Fund as well as CEO of the AFF Foundation. A serial technology entrepreneur and investor, he brings four decades of deep-tech sector expertise from founding and scaling frontier companies in Silicon Valley and internationally.

Innovation Hub’s role in the rapid expansion of the Cambridge Ecosystem

Backed by at least £15 million in government funding as part of the £800 million Oxford Cambridge Growth Package, the Hub aims to build on the rapid expansion of the Cambridge ecosystem, which has grown by 80 percent over the past decade. The Hub’s ambition to connect innovators with investors to commercialise and scale spinouts will translate cutting edge ideas into successful businesses and meaningful economic impact.

Cambridge University’s Contribution to Economic Impact

Cambridge spinouts contribute more than £23 billion of economic value to the UK annually. The Innovation Hub will help deliver even greater value, building on the success that the University and its colleges have fostered, working hand in hand with local, regional and national partners to deliver economic growth for Cambridge and beyond. 

Cambridge is already the top university in the country for the number of spinouts created since 2012 and for driving innovation. In the past two weeks, Cambridge Enterprise launched a new initiative for start-ups. The Innovation Hub will aim to significantly build on Cambridge’s existing contribution to innovation and enterprise.