Meet the matchmaking firm that helps universities forge ties with companies

Left to right: Patrick Speedie (In-Part Publishing), Sean Hutchinson (British Business Bank), Dr Nicola Broughton (Mercia), Will Clark (Mercia), Dr Robin Knight (In-Part Publishing) Picture: Shaun Flannery/shaunflanneryphotography.com

Sheffield-based IN-PART acts as a matchmaker between universities and industry. The funding includes £750,000 from NPIF - Mercia Equity Finance, which is managed by Mercia Fund Managers and is part of the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, with an additional £200,000 from two private investors.

IN-PART’s online matchmaking platform aims to simplify the process through which discoveries made in universities are turned into new products, drugs and technologies.

The company, which also received seed capital of around £350,000 in 2016, employs 28 people in its offices in Sheffield and London. This latest funding round will allow it to expand its teams in both locations.

As part of the deal, Thomas Jørgensen, co-founder of university software platform Pure, which was sold to Elsevier in 2012, will join the board as chairman.

IN-PART sends personalised alerts to research and development (R&D) teams in industry with relevant innovations being developed by academic researchers around the world.

When a company signals interest, IN-PART organises the initial introduction. Feedback is gathered from companies and interaction data from the platform is analysed to provide engagement metrics. IN-PART’s company network now includes R&D teams in more than 5,500 companies, including Roche, Johnson & Johnson, Samsung, IBM, Google X, and multiple users from all of the top 25 global R&D-spending firms in 2018.

More than 220 universities and research institutes from six continents showcase their research on the platform, including Columbia, Cornell, UPenn, Max Planck, Leiden, Vienna, Osaka, Queensland, Australian National University and the University of Hong Kong, as well as UK universities such as Oxford, Cambridge, Sheffield, Edinburgh and Manchester.

Patrick Speedie, Co-CEO and co-founder of IN-PART, said: “We’re pleased to receive support from the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund as well as adding some great new non-executive expertise to our board.

“The funding will allow us to invest further in product development to scale our matchmaking platform and our Discover product, in line with our vision of connecting university research with companies around the world.”

Nicola Broughton, the head of Universities at Mercia, who will join the In-PART board, said: “Universities have been responsible for some of the biggest breakthroughs in modern times and IN-PART is helping to transfer university technology across the globe.

“This funding will allow it to build its presence in the international marketplace.”