Greenlight Computers Ltd has been providing comprehensive IT support to University Spinout companies since 2010.

We have been pro-active with the University community in offering easy start up services in a low-cost model that covers the key IT elements to lay the right foundations for starting a new company.

Our spinout clients are often exceptional at the technology or science they are trying to exploit but lack the corresponding business acumen or IT understanding to get started. University teams are established around the UK to help with the business acumen (IP, legal, financial) and Greenlight Computers fill the IT gap with free consultancy.

How Greenlight Computers supports University Spinouts

Pre-Spinout

Greenlight Computers HQ is within the University of Manchester campus and has developed excellent links with many other universities. We have also had the privilege of delivering IT services in partnership with university and faculty IT teams where additional capacity or skills are needed to supplement the internal teams.

This work has led to Greenlight Computers being a trusted partner in some fantastic new ventures within the Spinout community for more than a decade. Our expertise of both being an SME and delivering a comprehensive suite of IT services and solutions enables us to provide excellent advice and guidance to potential spinouts.

We often find that potential spinouts tread carefully at the beginning and need to operate in a hybrid IT world with both private and University access required. With our specialist knowledge of this hybrid need we can ensure that the cyber security of all parties is maintained during transition and enables the start of the spinout process.

Our IT team (Greenlight Computers) will pre-design a spinout IT strategy and early-stage data architecture to safeguard your precious IP and prepare you for flexible working. Selecting and configuring Microsoft 365 for email, office and secure collaboration is a low-cost activity if done correctly at the beginning but can be costly to resolve and block investment in the future if done badly.

Our Digital Marketing team (Greenlight Web) will often work on spinout branding (logo, colour palette, target audience, domain and hosting, pre-launch website and social media claiming for brand protection).

Our senior team are regularly signed up to NDA’s 6 – 12 months in advance of a spinout to help ensure common mistakes are avoided, often in the pre phase on a pro-bono basis until budgets are in place.

Spinout Early Stage – secure and scalable setup

Early-stage university spinout is often focused on the search for round 1 funding to enable a confident start in the private sector. From an IT perspective the potential funders will look for risks in how the new company has setup and maintains control over any IP that’s core to the business. The Greenlight team has a well-developed checklist of key areas to get right and impress the potential investor. This knowledge has become Greenlight’s IP and differentiates us from the numerous good IT partners a spinout could work with.

Our checklist is geared around seven simple principles that reduce investor risk:

1. Protected Brand – ensuring that websites, social media, email, pitch decks and other digital media have appropriate security measures in place.
2. Professional Brand – ensuring that design work is consistent and flows across all platforms with well written content. Low volume high value communication.
3. Scalable IT – ensuring that initial low-budget choices do not restrict future growth.
4. Segregated Data – coaching the spinout on segregating Management data from Staff data from External Collaboration data at the outset.
5. Cyber Secure IT – establishing corporate level security practices and protections from the beginning.
6. Responsive Support – IT will be designed to predict and prevent issues but inevitably humans press buttons and problems occur, responsive specialist support is essential.
7. Trusted Partners – establishing a mutually beneficial contracted service ensures both parties remain focused and benefit from future successful growth.

The Universities Spin Out Report 2021 highlights the potential university spinout businesses have and why its essential to get the early stages right.

The pleasing thing for Greenlight is that the number one sector for university spinout is Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology, a sector in which Greenlight has over 60% of its clients. This positions us nicely to support clients in the early stages and then through into growth and expansion, bringing in our expertise in the Life Sciences sector, for more information click here.

Spinout Growth Stage

After securing round one funding many university spinouts look to finalise their technical split from the university and operate on an independent commercial footing, retaining key links back to academia. At this point we often see the first phase of growth in staff numbers, new premises, new lab facilities etc. We regard this as the spinout growth stage.

By the adoption of cloud-based IT solutions from the outset, Greenlight support the client in making short-term changes to the team or locations without restriction. New computers can be procured, configured with software applications, security protections added and be readied for new members of the team. New locations can be pre-configured with networks and firewalls to enable flexible working. Digital marketing can be accelerated to make the business more visible to potential clients or future investors in the case of drug development. The use of flexible IT solutions is enabling Greenlight Computers clients to manage any change of data flows or storage and backup changes without concern.

The biggest investor in UK based university spinouts is Innovate UK. Greenlight has worked on numerous UKRI funded projects. The ability to track the finances to demonstrate the effect of the funding is a key part of the long-term relationship.