A report by
Purpose of this report
This report sets out the early economic impact of the ImpactU Pathfinder Award, the pre-seed loan scheme covered throughout. It looks at three things: how much independent capital the loans have helped attract, how many jobs would not otherwise exist, and what returns to the public purse once loan repayment and tax on those jobs are taken into account.
It is written for ImpactU, its funders, and anyone weighing whether the scheme represents good value for public money.
Figures are stated plainly, and every claim says whether it comes from measured results or from a model, so a reader can judge how much weight each figure can
bear.
This is a working analysis, not a final audited position. Several figures are projections rather than settled fact, and the report notes clearly where that is the case.
What is ImpactU, and what does the report cover?
ImpactU is a collaboration of universities that supports mission-led businesses emerging from university research. It works in two ways.
The first is the ImpactU Pathfinder Award: pre-seed capital, provided as a loan, given directly to ventures. This is the funding mechanism this report is about, and every figure in this report relates to it.
The second is the ImpactU Hub, a training programme that has supported many more founders than have received a Pathfinder loan. The Hub is not included in this analysis. There is no data yet on its effectiveness, and the ventures that receive a loan do not necessarily overlap with the much larger group that has used the Hub. This report should be read as an account of the Pathfinder loan scheme specifically, not of ImpactU as a whole.
What the Pathfinder scheme does, in one picture
A loan goes in. It helps a venture grow and create jobs. Some of that value comes back to the people who paid for it.
Some of these ventures would have grown a little on their own, without any support. We want credit only for the additional growth: the part ImpactU is responsible for. We call this comparison a counterfactual. It is our best estimate of what would have happened without the programme.
Headline figures:
Leverage | £3.60 raised independently for every £1 lent
£1m lent · £3.6m raised independently across the cohort. This is largely driven by a small number of ventures, taken at a set timepoint. The ventures received ImpactU funding across a 2 year period, so their fundraising timelines vary.
This data reflects 20 ventures reported so far, so an assumption that the unreported follow a similar trend gives the £3.60 for every £1 lent figure.
Jobs | 17–28 new jobs created that would not otherwise exist 17 measured from 20 ventures reporting so far · 28 projected once the full cohort is accounted for.
Value for the taxpayer | +£530k expected net benefit by Year 4, once loan repayments and job tax are counted in
This calculation predicts tax paid by the ventures that ImpactU funded over the next 4 years, above what you would expect to see from a similar group of companies. This is a central estimate, there is a range across scenarios of +£290k to +£770k.
About DivineOx:
Divine Ox builds predictive models and science-based valuations that turn fragmented portfolio data into numbers you can actually report. We work with universities, investors, and supply chain leaders who need impact evidence that will hold up, particularly for very small organisations — not just tick a box. DivineOx is an Oxford University Innovation startup company.
More information here: https://divineox.org