Two-and-a-half centuries ago, Liverpool was a driving force behind the industrial revolution; now, it’s at the heart of a new movement. Jo Russell looks at how the city and wider region is spearheading the life sciences and technology revolution.
Liverpool has a ‘rich’ history. Once central to the industrial revolution, it is a city built on slavery, but rich in culture with a strong identity. It has also been home to much cutting-edge innovation over the years. It lays claim to the world’s first commercial wet dock and its first tropical disease institute, and the first intercity railway line ran between Liverpool and Manchester. Now the Liverpool City Region (LCR) has ambitious new plans. By investing 5% of GVA in R&D by 2030 – nearly double the Government’s overall UK target – it aims to turn the region into a science superpower.
It’s an ambitious goal, but an achievable one, says Alex Pilkington, business support specialist at RTC North. She points to the health and life sciences sector, which has 1,800 businesses within the region, as proof: “The LCR is a major biomanufacturing cluster, with the highest number of specialist hospitals outside London, and it’s also home to the world-renowned Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.”
Better together
Collaboration between the LCR and Liverpool-based laboratory testing specialist BioGrad is ongoing. BioGrad recently opened Europe’s first private research tissue bank in Wavertree Technology Park, as part of a £25m investment into women’s health, and is looking to build a multimillion pound consortium to establish a bio-manufacturing centre of excellence. “This would position Liverpool at the forefront of the emerging health and life sciences sector plan,” says Pilkington. And in September BioGrad unveiled plans for a new Centre of Bio-Manufacturing Excellence in the Liverpool City Region. Work will begin by the end of the year. The aim is to position the region as a leader in advanced cell and gene therapies and bio-manufacturing.
Other recent deals include a £250,000 investment by LYVA Labs into biotech firm Daresbury Proteins, and Plasma Fresh. The latter – a University of Liverpool spinout specialising in cutting-edge sterilisation technology – secured £1m of seed funding from NG Studios (Northern Gritstone’s pre-seed programme), Deepbridge Capital and LYVA Labs.
“The university has historically been a fantastic source of great innovation, and recently there has been a real gear change in terms of its ability to do spinouts,” says Marc d’Abbadie, head of venture and executive director, River Capital.
Beyond the university there are clusters of innovation to be found around the city, one being the Sci-Tech Daresbury national science and innovation campus. River Capital recently exited its stake in Carebeans, a software-as-a-service system based at the campus that helps manage residential and nursing care homes – generating a 3x return on its 2021 investment of £350,000.
Then there’s the Knowledge Quarter in the north of the city centre, incorporating the £1bn Paddington Village development, Liverpool Science Park, and the Spine, a newly constructed, state-of-the-art office block. “There’s been a concerted effort to build knowledge-intensive infrastructure in the city and that whole area is throwing up a lot of interesting innovation,” says d’Abbadie.
Sir Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves visit Liverpool’s Manufacturing Technology Centre
Talent on show
The creative sector, much of it centred around the Baltic Triangle, is another LCR strength. “Gaming has been very active,” says Chris Ryan, director in the Liverpool office of FRP Corporate Finance. “Sony bought Firesprite in 2021, and subsequently set up an office in Liverpool for the development of the PlayStation. Lightspeed acquired Lucid Games in 2023, and Liverpool-based Wushu was acquired by Keywords Studios plc in 2024.”
Alongside the Baltic Triangle and Knowledge Quarter districts, leisure and tourism is also on the rise. The Ten Streets development – billed as a “creativity district” around the Bramley-Moore Dock Stadium development, the new home of Everton FC – is a case in point.
“The stadium is one and a half miles from the city centre and mostly on derelict dockland. But that gap between the city and the northern docks is narrowing, as infrastructure around the stadium starts to pop up and grow, with bars and restaurants,” continues Ryan. The development has come at a cost, of sorts, as the city was stripped of its UNESCO World Heritage Status in 2021, due to the nature of the redevelopment. But progress, particularly when compared with the docks of the 1980s and 1990s, is hard to argue against.
For businesses to move from innovative startup to sustained growth requires a supportive infrastructure. Gateway Angels, formerly LCR Angels Network, is active in the region, as are early-stage accelerators such as LYVA Labs and Baltic Ventures. Investing in life sciences and creative and tech companies respectively these accelerators provide consulting support, to help commercialise operations, alongside equity. DSW Ventures also operates in Liverpool.
River Capital, which has set up the first EIS AI fund in the north of England and runs a £10m private equity fund, provides investment of £500,000 to £2m to support SMEs in the north-west. There’s also the LCR £10m seed fund, managed by AXM Ventures, and the Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund, run by Praetura Ventures, which provides investments of up to £5m.
“There are different funders for different stages,” says d’Abbadie. “It’s a nice conveyor belt to help companies at each stage of their development. And at the core of it all is key expertise around life sciences, tech and AI.”
FRP’s Ryan says that hasn’t always been the case: “There has been a gap in the lower level, early-stage seed funding, both in Liverpool and across the country, which LYVA and River Capital have been helping to plug. For midmarket PE, Maven Capital opened an office in Liverpool in 2022 supporting investments up to £10m.”
There can be a lack of awareness of what private equity means and the value it can bring
But he believes the region’s midmarket could be better supported: “I’m surprised there aren’t more boots on the ground. There are lots of high-quality businesses in the region that would be ripe for mid-market equity, but there can be a lack of awareness of what private equity means and the value it can bring, particularly on exiting a business. If there were more PE houses here it would definitely help with that message.”
Graham Bond, partner at RSM, suggests there may be other factors at play. “There are a lot of fantastic businesses, but also family and lifestyle businesses, meaning the appetite for PE and capital markets is not as high as in some other areas,” he says.
Old meets new at Pier Head
Spinning out
May’s announcement of a partnership between the University of Liverpool and Northern Gritstone to accelerate the university’s spinout activities marks a seismic change to the investment landscape.
The partnership gives Northern Gritstone, which has committed funds of more than £360m, preferred investor status. The university’s most promising spinouts will be able to access the NG Studios venture building accelerator programs in both life sciences and deep tech.
Launched in 2024 by Northern Gritstone, NG Studios has already seen its inaugural tech cohort raise £15m.
“We are excited about the pipeline of investment opportunities in both deep tech and life sciences, and early-stage companies from the university are already benefiting from our NG Studios programmes,” says Cassie Doherty (pictured), investment director at Northern Gritstone.
Liverpool is the fourth university to form a partnership with Northern Gritstone, after Leeds, Manchester and Sheffield. The combined strength of the four Northern Arc universities places them above both Oxford and Cambridge in terms of total annual research income.
Unsung hero
It is not just mid-market PE that is under-represented, according to Ryan. “The Liverpool region now has less access to advisory services than it did 10 years ago. There are a lot of great companies here, but there has been a trend of advisory work being serviced from Manchester or London, with advisors going down national service lines,” he says. “We think this leaves huge opportunity in the region.” FRP, which is investing in a new Liverpool office to service clients locally, clearly plans to capitalise on this.
Bond suggests that, while points of contact should be based locally, there’s no reason not to build a team based on expertise rather than location. “Gone are the days of having a full service offering from a major firm based in Liverpool. Major firms other than ourselves are located in Liverpool but we will resource our deal team from around the region or nationally, depending on what is required.”
Global markets recognise the UK as a source of professional and business services excellence
A recent baseline review from Edge Hill University (in Ormskirk) reveals the essential role that the wider professional and business services sector plays in fostering growth across key sectors in the region. Collectively, professional and business services (PBS) firms in the region, from startups to repeat scaleup businesses, generated turnover of £37bn in 2024. That’s more than the life sciences, creative and digital and advanced manufacturing sectors combined.
“Global markets recognise the UK as a source of PBS excellence, particularly in accounting, legal services and management consultancy. PBS was never seen to be the growth sector, but, given its importance, it can’t be ignored and left to look after itself,” says Steve Stuart, chair of LYVA Labs and outgoing chair of the Professional Services Advisory Board of the LCR. “It is
important that we keep pace with the needs of modern business in scaling and providing these services to sufficiently high standards.”
He says that means helping the sector stay abreast of technology adoption and innovation in the workplace, using international links for companies entering new markets and growing exports, and ensuring access to growth finance for scale-ups.
Making the cut
Part of the government’s recent Industrial Strategy is to create five regional hubs – including one in Liverpool – that will be centres of national excellence for the PBS sector.
Both Stuart and Bond believe that Liverpool’s PBS community has already shown itself to be ahead of the game by commissioning the Edge Hill baseline review, which identified nearly 2,300 PBS companies with high growth and scale-up potential.
The PBS hub will hopefully help those companies that want to scale but don’t know how to do so
“Whether those companies know they can scale up is the next step,” says Bond. “The PBS hub will hopefully help those companies that want to scale but don’t know how to do so. For companies in Liverpool it is an education piece, where the hub can act as a facilitator to achieving scale-up goals.”
Having companies with high growth potential already identified should be an immediate win for the hub, says Stuart: “It’s now incumbent upon the local business and professional services community to maximise the benefits of the review.”
To highlight the innovation and scale-up potential within LCR, Innovate UK Business Growth and LYVA Labs hosted the fourth LCR Innovation Summit in June 2025. David Petrie, ICAEW head of corporate finance, spoke at the event.
Pilkington says the strategy has had a phenomenal impact: “It has put the region on the map, shining a spotlight on LCR and creating visibility and interest from people looking to locate in the region.”
In addition, Biomedical Catalyst, Innovate UK’s recently launched £140m flagship funding mechanism for SMEs, has chosen to host one of three regional roadshows at LYVA Labs (together with London and Glasgow).
Its selection for the Biomedical Catalyst roadshow and, more importantly, the PBS hub suggests the LCR region is already firmly on the map. Pilkington is clear why investors should be making the journey: “Look at the sheer breadth of health and life science companies and spinouts and the amount of knowledge. The sheer depth of expertise we have in this region – that can catalyse a business and help it grow – is immense.”
Defensive play
While creative industries, healthcare and life sciences, and advanced manufacturing are touted as the growth sectors in LCR, another sector is also rising up the ranks.
“Defence investing, long rarely discussed and then generally only in the context of its ineligibility for EU funding, is now a much hotter topic,” says River Capital’s Marc d’Abbadie (1).
A recent event looking at current opportunities for LCR companies within the defence sector, attended by industry leaders such as Cammell Laird, Make UK Defence, and JOSCAR, sold out within two weeks. “There is a lot of activity around entering the supply chain, deepening the levels of knowledge and preparedness for SMEs looking to seize the opportunities,” says RTC North’s Alex Pilkington (2). “Clients not in the defence sector are finding it harder to raise capital, particularly those in less critical ‘nice to have’ areas. Even advanced manufacturing companies attract more interest if they are related to defence.”
