The Rainbow Seed Fund is a £24m, early-stage venture capital fund dedicated to kick-starting promising technology companies developed at some of the UK’s largest publicly-funded research facilities, in the rapidly expanding science and technology campuses linked to them and in the field of synthetic biology.

Created in 2002, the Rainbow Seed Fund is backed by ten UK publicly-funded research organisations and the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS). The Fund holds investments in some of the UK’s most innovative companies in areas as diverse as novel antibiotics, research into Alzheimer’s disease, “green” chemicals and airport security.