Chalmers make historic investment in entrepreneurship

Increased number of fast-growing companies and a new model for Swedish growth. That’s the objective when Chalmers University of Technology rebuilds the group and gathers strength to become the best university in the world at innovation and entrepreneurship. Chalmers are putting around EUR 50 million of their own funds into a new wholly owned subsidiary within Venture Creation.

Entrepreneurship in and around Chalmers has maintained a high standard for a long time. The two Chalmers incubators, Encubator and Chalmers Innovation, are ranked among the top ten university business incubators in the world, according to the UBI index. Together they have propelled companies such as tape woven materials supplier Oxeon, fleet management systems provider Vehco and cancer vaccine developer Immunicum into success.

Chalmers are now reinforcing these two complementing incubators, and simultaneously scaling up and broadening their work within entrepreneurship. This by means of consolidating Venture Creation operations at Chalmers in a new subsidiary which, over a period of ten years, will be fed SEK 300 million in investment capital from Chalmers University of Technology Foundation, plus almost SEK 150 million in operating funds.

‘We wish to stimulate the surfacing of more ideas and more entrepreneurs, improve the quality of the companies formed and see to it they grow faster, for the benefit of Swedish competitive power and sustainability,’ said Chalmers president and chief executive officer Karin Markides, who is counting on continued good relations with regional, national and international players. She continued: 

‘This is an aggressive investment to overcome the lack of stable seed financing, which has, for a long time, caused a bottleneck stopping Swedish companies from growing, and an investment in entrepreneurship, unprecedented in academia.’

The new subsidiary form a foundation for strengthening entrepreneurial spirit as a driving force throughout Chalmers. All students shall, in the long term, receive entrepreneurial experience during their education, an advantage that now primarily applies only to students at the Chalmers school of entrepreneurship. This will require greater involvement from researchers and the business community within all education. For this purpose it will be advantageous to have expertise and innovation environments gathered together more clearly.

The subsidiary will preside over a portfolio of some 60 companies, value approximately EUR 13 million.

‘We have developed two world-class incubator processes which we shall reinforce and integrate with a common management and more aggressive marketing. We will coordinate the development of our holdings in the best possible way. The journey starts now, with the objective of becoming one of the world’s top three incubators within five years,’ said Linnéa Lindau, CEO of the new subsidiary.

Research results and inventions from Chalmers along with spin-outs from industry, provide a natural breeding ground for the consolidated operations, but the door is open to all.

‘We welcome all entrepreneurs and researchers attracted by our focus on business acumen, scalability and profitability, with or without earlier connections with Chalmers,’ said Linnéa Lindau.

New Chalmers subsidiary for Venture Creation
The subsidiary encompasses the coordination of Encubator and Chalmers innovation – two top ranked incubators – with Chalmersinvest, one of Chalmers’ first involvements in earlier investments. Encubators’ process is based on innovations connected up with students, primarily from the Chalmers school of entrepreneurship, while the other process (Chalmers innovation) focuses on entrepreneurs wishing to realize their ideas. Additionally, the new subsidiary will start up a business area for executing licensing businesses and the handling of immaterial assets.

More about Chalmers incubators
Chalmers Innovation appointed 7th best business incubator in the world
Encubator tops world incubators

Contact:
Karin Markides, president and CEO, Chalmers University of Technology, +46-31-772 25 50
Fredrik Hörstedt, vice president with responsibility for business relations and the innovation system, Chalmers, +46-31-772 43 22, fredrik.horstedt@chalmers.se
Linnéa Lindau, acting CEO, Chalmers Venture Creation AB (name to be changed), +46-730-79 42 08, linnea.lindau@encubator.com