How much equity would different universities take from your spinout?

OBR has recently published a paper in Nature Biotechnology, examining spinout practices from nearly 100 of the world’s top universities.

The goals of the paper were two-fold:
(1) To give bioentrepreneurs practical advice on how to navigate their university technology transfer offices (TTOs); and
(2) To shine a light on this otherwise opaque process.

What we found was shocking variability in equity stakes that different universities take. For instance, some universities take 5% whilst others take over 67%. Not only are some taking 10-15 times more equity than their peers (leaving very little for the entrepreneurs and investors), but many universities are also failing to make this information public. This is despite the fact that much of their research is being funded by taxpayers’ money.

Read our Nature Biotechnology paper here

It has been a monumental effort by OBR over the past year to get this data, and I’d like to express my sincere thanks to the many OBR contributors who made this happen. We hope this article can start a conversation and bring clarity to this important issue.