Northern Gritstone Secures £50m, Appoints New Director

Northern Gritstone, a life sciences and DeepTech investment firm, has raised an additional £50 million, bringing its total permanent capital to £362 million. Notably, £35 million of the new funding comes from Northern LGPS, a collective asset pool serving the Greater Manchester, Merseyside, and West Yorkshire pension funds. The remaining £15 million is sourced from new investors Fulcrum Asset Management and Aviva. Furthermore, the Manchester-based firm has appointed Paddy Dowdall, assistant director of the Greater Manchester Pension Fund, to its board as a non-executive director. Since its inception in May 2022, Northern Gritstone has made 32 investments in early-stage businesses in Northern England, expanded its team, and launched its venture-building toolkit called NG Innovation Services. Additionally, it introduced NG Studios, an accelerator program aimed at fostering development and job creation within its specialized sectors. Northern Gritstone Chairman, Lord Jim O'Neill, and CEO, Duncan Johnson, express gratitude for the support from investors, emphasizing the firm's mission to leverage innovation from the North of England's university ecosystem to enhance productivity and foster high-value activity. Fulcrum Asset Management's executive director, David Merton, voiced strong alignment with Northern Gritstone's focus on university spin-outs, highlighting their ambition to develop a dynamic science and technology business community in the region.