Minerva Business Angels (University of Warwick)

Beauhurst has accredited Minerva Business Angels as the 2nd most active angel network in the UK and the most prolific investors in the Midlands on a deal basis. The Scaleup Institute identified Minerva as the UK’s second most active green scaleup economy investor.

Minerva operates to a not-for-profit objective and seeks to help fill the gap between the £0 – £3mn turnover. Our membership includes investors, family offices and venture capitalists.

UWSP formed the predecessor to Minerva in 1994 to support its Tenants seeking investment. In 2010 UWSP formed Minerva (a brand name of UWSP), whose members have invested in over 100 companies and around £20mn, with an estimated leveraged figure of around £60mn in co-investment.

Minerva delivers its services, matching investors with founders through a collective of universities. Universities have a “beacon effect” to attract members, and we run a face-to-face offering (to co-located investor groups) through Aston, Birmingham, Loughborough, Nottingham, and Nottingham Trent. Furthermore, Minerva operates a face-to-face meeting for investors located around Warwick, Leamington Spa, Cheltenham and London through Warwick Business School.

We deliver Minerva Birmingham PitchUp, which is a joint effort between Aston Birmingham and ourselves. Minerva Birmingham Pitch Up supports companies from all over the Midlands, are invited to apply, receive investor training, and are subject to panel reviews from experts. That selected enter the Pitch Up competition run together with West Midlands Venturefest. Further to the face-to-face model, we also deliver webinar pitches to accommodate those who can’t make the above groups and provide an ongoing educational series to our investors and companies.

In all, Minerva facilitates the connections between investors and founders but given its non-regulated status, doesn’t get involved in the deals or negotiations.

All applicants are subjected to a due diligence process to ensure they fit our investors’ interests and are interviewed for capability assessment. When a further review is deemed necessary, they are put out to our experts in the investor community. This provides for a deal pipeline in excess of 400 companies, the majority of which are Tech related businesses.

Of those applying, 70-80/year are invited to pitch, the majority of which are within net zero, health and well-being and next-generation digital technologies and technology.