Influx of capital to Uppsala’s life science companies

Uppsala’s medical technology / diagnostics companies attract the highest proportion of capital influx through share issues.

On January 24^th, Uppsala BIO’s founding organisation STUNS, together with Lindahl, one of Sweden’s largest business law firms, held a lunch seminar outlining the influx of capital to Uppsala’s life science businesses. The event marked the conclusion of a joint project on capital flow and growth in early-stage life science companies funded by Region Uppsala and the European Regional Development Fund. Its findings were presented by Kontigo, a consulting company that has surveyed the influx of share-issue capital to small and medium-sized enterprises in Uppsala’s life science sector during 2005-2015 according to a method developed by STUNS and Lindahl.

As well as the key question ‘What does the capital influx via issued capital look like for life science companies in Uppsala?’ the report addressed other issues such as the relationship between revenue from share-issue capital and other external equity capital and growth.

Share issues raised around SEK 5 billion

Kontigo showed that over the past ten years, share issues increased the influx of capital to companies in Uppsala’s life science sector by almost SEK 5 billion. Medical technology, including diagnostics, is the area that attracts the highest proportion of capital. Moreover, the companies that issued shares showed a significantly stronger employment trend, suggesting that share emission data could be used for early identification of growing companies.