UK incubator named the best in the world

The best incubators are believed to be up to three times as efficient as those in the middle of the pack.  Studies suggest that the best have generated over 1,200 jobs in the last five years.

What’s more, the level of funding attracted by the best incubators is approximately twice that of the average, with the best incubators able to draw upon a much larger network of investors.

These top performers are also believed to perform much better than average, with startups in leading incubators generating nearly four times the revenue of similar startups in average incubators.

So we are very pleased that SETsquared, the enterprise partnership of the universities of Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey, has been ranked by UBI Global as the top university business incubator in the world.

SETsquared was established 13 years ago and during that time has supported over 1,000 startups, with funding of over £1bn having been secured during that time.  It’s estimated that the incubator has contributed nearly £4bn in Gross Value Added to the UK economy.

The partnership is currently supporting 265 companies that are employing over 9,000 people.  This is estimated to grow to over 14,000 by 2025.

“This top ranking is a real testament to the skill of our staff and the success of the hi-tech, high-growth potential ventures we work with,” said Simon Bond, innovation director at SETsquared.

“The UK was recently ranked as the second most innovative country in the world by the Global Innovation Index for its performance in infrastructure, market sophistication, knowledge, technology and creative outputs, and SETsquared is very proud to have played our part in putting the UK on the map as one of the top performing countries for innovation.”

The first prize saw SETsquared beat off competition from 1,200 incubators from around the world.

“The importance of discovering and identifying these top performing incubators is underlined by our studies, which show that top benchmarked incubators provide almost half of the total economic impact within the incubation market” says UBI Global CEO and Co-founder, Ali Amin.

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