The European startup conversation is often dominated by more populated cities such as London, Paris and Berlin. But Oxford is now emerging as one of the continent’s most consistent producers of high-growth companies.
Startups in Oxford raised £429m (€509m) in 2025 across 34 deals, according to Sifted data; a small increase from the £417m (€479m) raised in 2024.
Startups in the drug discovery and biotech space are leading this surge in funding, with the likes of drug discovery company Blue Earth Therapeutics and biotech startup Enara Bio, both of which raised £56m (Series A) and £24m (Series B) in 2024, respectively.
Deeptech is also a rapidly growing sector in Oxford with VC activity and funding on the rise. AI chip developer Fractile secured $22.m (£16.7m) in funding at the beginning of this year from Nato Innovation Fund, Kindred and Oxford Science Enterprises.
One force behind this momentum is Oxford University's Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre, which provides funding, mentoring and education to aspiring entrepreneurs through programmes, training and events.
The centre has welcomed around 14.5k attendees since 2017; 2,900 people attended the centre’s events between 2024 and 2025, including the university's flagship innovation event Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Forum (OSEF).
Sifted sat down with Maria Zubeldia, executive director of Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre, and Lily Elsner and Nick Shipley, cofounders of male fertility startup Jack Fertility and alumni of the centre, to unpack how the centre is supporting future founders.
“We have grown our reputation significantly”: Inside Oxford Saïd Entrepreneurship Centre
While the centre provides training for aspiring entrepreneurs, it also helps to strengthen the Oxford ecosystem, with importance placed on not just producing high-quality ventures at the final stage but also supporting the pipeline at the earliest stages.
Oxford University's Saïd Business School offers programs including an MBA, as part of which the centre offers an Entrepreneurship Project elective, which sees students working together in groups on either new products or new business models.
Oxford Venture Builder really helps our early-stage founders with training, mentoring and pitching experience.
Students receive mentoring support throughout the project and develop a full business plan to present to a panel of investors and entrepreneurs.
The entrepreneurship centre also runs two funding schemes; Oxford Seed Fund’s student programme, which invests up to £100k into startups which have a current or past Oxford student, alumni or researcher as part of the founding team, and the Oxford Catalyst Grant, a grant that supports founders building their minimum viable products.
The centre works closely with EnSpire, the University of Oxford’s entrepreneurship hub to offer Oxford Venture Builder, a seven-week programme helping students and researchers test ideas and develop products.
“Oxford Venture Builder really helps our early-stage founders with training, mentoring and pitching experience,” Zubeldia says. “One of the teams from last year has recently joined Y Combinator.”
Jack Fertility
Elsner and Shipley both completed the Oxford MBA in 2019/20 which then allowed them to start Jack Fertility in Oxford in 2022.
The company has now grown into a specialised postal male fertility service supporting men with their reproductive health and allowing them the ability to send in a sample directly to their lab.
“What the centre does well is that, even if you aren’t part of the university, you can still access its speakers and events,” Elsner says.
These clinicians are busy people but an email from an Oxford student account seemed to cut through the noise. It meant we were able to secure conversations we likely wouldn’t have otherwise.
“You can go to many of these talks as a lay person and get exposure to people who have had unicorn companies, for example. It's extraordinary who you can get access to.”
Even just having an Oxford University email address has benefitted Jack Fertility.
“When we used that email address to talk to male fertility specialists, just having that address was super helpful,” Shipley says. “These clinicians are busy people but an email from an Oxford student account seemed to cut through the noise. It meant we were able to secure conversations we likely wouldn’t have otherwise.”
The Oxford Seed Fund was an early backer of Jack Fertility, participating in the company’s £500k pre-seed round at the end of last year.
The wider Oxford Ecosystem
Shipley and Elsner have thought about relocating, and whether they should move to a bigger European city or to the US. But they’ve stayed in Oxford for a number of reasons.
“I started my career in law in the US, and it's a much more litigious culture,” says Elsner. “When producing a novel product, you need safety to do R&D often before the product is ready. It’s important to have an ecosystem that supports this and that was appealing with Oxford.”
The US healthcare system is also different to the UK’s, she adds. Often each state has a different jurisdiction over what is covered within private insurance. In the UK, there are far clearer indicators of what falls under the remit of the country’s National Health Service (NHS).
“In the US, you have more capital but you also have tight timelines. For us, being able to build sustainably and for a longer period of time was far more appealing and we felt we could do this in Oxford,” she says.
There is one thing missing, Elsner tells Sifted: more opportunities in Oxford for startups to receive R&D grants for use on experimentation.
When producing a novel product, you need safety to do R&D often before the product is ready. It’s important to have an ecosystem that supports this and that was appealing with Oxford
“There needs to be more accessible ‘validation proof of concept’ funding,” she says. “Businesses need a little bit of money to fail and the permission to use this capital and have it not work out.
“With core infrastructure there's also little accessible office space particularly to businesses that are in between scaling phases,” she adds.
“The centre allowed us to co-work but it can be as simple as a place to take calls, Wi-Fi and a whiteboard. This is what could get companies to the point that they could get funded.”
One of the main focus areas for the centre is to foster diversity in entrepreneurship, says Zubeldia.
“One of the initiatives that we have is Inspiring Female Founders,” she says. “Research shows that less than 2% of funding available goes to female founders and we want to tackle this by showcasing female founders from all over the world as role models.
“Within the next decade I hope we won't even need to mention diversity. There are investors interested in tapping into the Oxford ecosystem. We need to leverage this momentum because I believe we’re in a really unique position.”
