The Campus Community Fund (CCF) underscores, accelerates and enhances Campus Groningen's unique strength, opportunities and impact for the region, and it's working! Campus Groningen continues to grow. The Campus Community Fund will be 1 year old in September 2021 and has had a full year of investing and encouraging growth. In the past year, the CCF has contributed more than €95 million in investments, particularly in business activities and collaborative projects. Carlo Ezinga, Director Cooperative Rabobank: "The Campus Community Fund facilitates the growth of Campus Groningen by bringing its high-value, innovative and often high-risk propositions into the context of the ecosystem. We are proud of the flying start of the first year and the ambitions for the coming years are great."
Well thought out investments
The CCF, from its investment strategy, invested in various types of projects last year. For example, €22.5 million was invested in Real Estate and Infrastructure. One example is the Clinical Research Unit. In cooperation with ICON, the UMCG is starting a new clinical research unit to be able to conduct new studies among patients at an early stage. This collaboration, which is unique in Europe, ensures that data and research results for new and existing medication can become available earlier.
"Anyone who visits Campus Groningen now sees how the available space is rapidly being filled with innovative solutions. Solutions that come from a very active and entrepreneurial campus community," said Edward van der Meer, director of Campus Groningen.
In addition, €20 million has been invested in the area of Facilities and Services, including in the Innolab Chemistry & Engineering. Both open innovation labs with space for startups and R&D are being realized in the Chemistry & Engineering Innovation Center on Campus Groningen. Finally, a total of €52.5 million has been invested in Business Activities in the form of start-up and scale-up investments, Public Private Partnerships and working capital. From this investment line, the CCF has stimulated the growth of startups SG Papertronics, Ocean Grazer, QDI Systems and Dutchvolt, among others, and was able to contribute to putting the ecosystem in diagnostics on the map worldwide through the Open Diagnostics project.
Sander Oosterhof, Business Development (NOM): "As far as we are concerned, the Campus Community Fund is a very valuable addition to the resources that Campus Groningen has for smart growth. By combining forces in a smart way each time, the fund can operate decisively. Necessary investments can be realized quickly and that has a great impact on the economy in the Northern Netherlands."
Toward new propositions
The strength of the Campus Community Fund is to enable innovative, complex, but also high-risk propositions from within the ecosystem at Campus Groningen. For example, the Campus aspires to an appropriate balance between private, public and shared facilities. A number of public and shared facilities are still missing, and these are not easy to finance. Consider, for example, the development of large-scale startup, hospitality and cultural concepts, for which the combination with things such as residential and sports facilities is desirable. These multifunctional concepts are more challenging when it comes to funding, but the Campus Community Fund in particular can play a role in this and make the connections that are needed.
After this anniversary, the CCF looks with confidence to the coming years and future investments, which will further strengthen the Campus Groningen ecosystem.
About the CCF
The Campus Community Fund - platform for funding - acts as a flywheel to transform the knowledge and expertise available at Campus Groningen, and in the region, even more effectively into important innovations. The CCF's investment strategy anticipates strong developments within the five regional core sectors of agri-food, energy, health/health, chemistry and digital economy, to invest in real estate and infrastructure, facilities and services, and business activities on Campus Groningen. A unique feature of the CCF is its mixed funding structure where public funds, bank funding and investment funds work together within the vision of the ecosystem. This collaboration leads to more efficient and shorter lead times and increases the quality of (investment) projects. Are you interested in the CCF or a good project plan? Then contact Ronald Hesse, platform manager of the CCF(ronald@campuscommunityfund.nl).
