OI EIS Growth Fund 1

The Oxford Innovation EIS Growth Fund 1 closed for investment in March 2021 and invested in a portfolio of promising technology companies over the course of the 2021/22 financial year. Investments completed include:

	Cognitant (Healthinote) is an Oxford based digital platform for health information. They work in partnership with patient groups to deliver personalised interactive information and medical apps to patients to help them manage their health and treatment. Their clients include the NHS and a number of pharmaceutical companies who use their services to provide information about health and treatment to patients.
	FungiAlert (FA Bio) is a deep-tech, bio-product discovery and development company for agriculture. Founded at Imperial College by PhDs, they are focused on revolutionising microbial discovery. Microbial discovery can lead to identifying natural predators to economically devastating pathogens, to identifying microbes for bio-fertilisation & carbon capture. FungiAlert's SporSenZ technology captures active microbes directly from the field, isolating & cultivating microbes at the right time & conditions, leading to superior bio-product candidates at a rate three to four times faster than existing routes.
	EcoSync is a revenue-generating cleantech start-up from Oxford with a cloud-based energy management platform for commercial buildings. 40% of the energy in commercial buildings is wasted on empty rooms. EcoSync’s AI-powered platform can find the empty rooms and optimise their temperature settings with a subscription-based service and maintenance-free control.
	Envorem is a UK company that has developed a Greentech to treat oily sludge by exploiting an obscure property of water. The oil and maritime industries discard 1% of crude oil as waste, annually generating circa 120 million tonnes of sludge. With no environmental way to treat these, they are either incinerated or dumped with massive environmental impact on our oceans, land and air. Envorem has built & deployed a large-scale paid pilot for the state oil company of Oman, successfully cleaning their sludge and recovering 99% of the oil.
	Wayland Additive’s Calibur machines offer a breakthrough in capability in metal Additive Manufacturing. They’ve reviewed the fundamental physics, and through tech transfer from the semiconductor industry made a step change in productivity, stability, and range of materials. They offer a more industrial, manufacturing-focussed platform. Wayland Additive’s machines are sold to manufacturing industries such as Defence, Space, Aerospace, Oil and Gas and Medical; industries which can take advantage of their capabilities to produce higher performing components; reduce cost, inventory, leadtimes, and simplify the supply chain.
	Oxford Medical Products have developed Sirona, a disruptive solution to the obesity crisis. Obesity is a pandemic with almost one third of adults overweight or obese, representing a global market of $160 billion. Sirona is a long-acting hydrogel pill that acts like a gastric balloon. It expands & stays in the stomach for several weeks causing a sensation of satiety, suppressing the taker’s appetite, before breaking down and passing naturally.
	Interpac has built a revolutionary machine for making corrugated cardboard, known in the trade as a “corrugator”. Almost everything bought on-line is delivered in a corrugated cardboard box. But corrugated board has a hidden secret, it needs steam to produce, wastes energy and water and is big and expensive requiring dedicated factories. By not using steam, the Interpac solution uses 80% less energy, is one tenth of the price, and offers savings of up to 25%.
	VisusNano is developing a pipeline of exciting drug-eluting intraocular lens implants, for use in patients undergoing cataract surgery. They’ve developed a novel biodegradable polymer-based drug-elution system which can be attached to the intraocular lens, allowing slow, controlled release of antibiotic, anti-inflammatory and anti-fibrotic agents. Resulting in improved patient outcomes by obviating the need for eye drops and laser treatment after surgery.
	InferSens have developed AI-enabled flow sensing technology, initially to the £7bn UK Legionella risk monitoring market - addressing a regulation-driven UK and global demand. Their low cost, scalable solution enables reductions in manual water testing and flushing, saving cost, water, energy and CO2. With a no-capex SaaS model customers see immediate net savings, reducing barriers to entry. With a strong customer pipeline in place, InferSens will sell directly and via channel partners.

If you're an investor in Fund 1 and would like to get in touch about your investment, please contact the Fund Custodian, KIN Capital, at fundservices@kincapital.co.uk. Alternatively, please contact Richard Cooper, Managing Director at Oxford Innovation Finance, who'll be happy to help with your query.

Companies interested in receiving investment from the Oxford Innovation EIS Growth Fund should follow the standard OION application and Showcase pitching process - further details on this can be found here.