Cascade Fund

Cascade Fund is a venture capital firm in London that provides financial and business assistance to early stage university-based companies in UK. The firm usually invests in early stage or seed rounds of five partner universities in south east England: Brunel, Reading, Royal Holloway, Surrey and Sussex. It invests in activities that have moved beyond the scope of Research Council funding but are still too early for conventional funding sources. The notable investment portfolio of Cascade Fund includes Whitfield Solar, GradFutures, and Si-Light Technologies. As of January 2020, Cascade Fund has made three investments.

The Cascade Fund had £4 million, 75% funded by the Office of Science & Technology (with contributions from the Wellcome Trust and the Gatsby Charitable Foundation) under the second round of the University Challenge Scheme, and 25% by the partner universities. The Cascade Fund is managed by an independent fund manager, Generics Asset Management Limited (GAML).