Cambridge is one of the UK’s most dynamic regions, and we have strong conviction in its potential to deliver sustainable growth and long-term value for investors. Our investments in Cambridge demonstrate our belief in backing entire ecosystems, not just individual assets.
This conviction-led approach means we invest across the full ecosystem, from pioneering science and sustainable housing to the infrastructure that connects ideas to impact.
Watch our latest video to see how we are supporting innovation, enabling growth, and helping to unlock long-term value for pension savers and society alike.
Transcript for video Spotlight on Cambridge
At Aviva Investors, it's really important that we add value to the companies that we invest in beyond capital. As an example, with Owlstone Medical, we put our Medical Director, who works in the health insurance business, so has unique insights, on the Board of Directors to advise as they grow and scale.
At Owlstone Medical, we’re developing a breathalyser for disease, and our company mission is to save 100,000 lives and $1.5 billion in health care costs.
Innovation that starts in the UK needs to develop and grow in the UK as well, so that means we have not just the people and the innovation, but the more funding that can stay in the UK to support that into the scale-up phase and more importantly, more funding that can come from outside of the UK to support these innovations, is fundamentally going to be how we turn ideas into innovations that change the world. So, I think it's the right mix of people, skills, and expertise to make world beating innovation.
Aviva Investors' approach is right across the Cambridge ecosystem. From venture capital, which has high growth potential, to real estate, looking at stable income going forward, to debt, looking at cash flows and downside protection. Being part of the local ecosystem can be really beneficial. We get to know the players: the universities, the hospitals, the research parks, the councils, and that gives us unique insight into investment opportunities.
So, we're here at Chesterford Research Park. This is a 260 acre life science campus which Aviva Investors acquired 20 years ago. We have been investing in the park ever since, and we can house anyone from small individual companies all the way through to multinationals, all on the same site. Behind us you can see the next evolution in that journey, the Sidney Sussex Building, which will deliver a 56,000 square foot of highly sustainable, lab enabled buildings ready for occupation later this year. We are creating an ecosystem where people can collaborate, from academics to scientists, from startups to multinationals. Be it in our canteen, on the golf course, on the trim trail. People can collaborate, share ideas, and hopefully grow the economy. At Aviva Investors, we place great importance on sustainability and wellness. And so, to support this, at Chesterford, we are delivering an eleven acre solar farm to deliver onsite renewable energy for our buildings and help reduce carbon emissions.
So, where we're standing today in 10 Station Road, if we’d have been here 15 years ago, we'd have been surrounded by dilapidated millhouse buildings and 1960s offices. Aviva Investors made its first investment into Station Road in the mid 2010s. With 50 and 60 Station Road, we invested about 100 million pounds in developing a best-in-class office building. Since then, we've also invested in two additional buildings, and there is significant investment coming into Cambridge. Between 2018 and 2023, about 23% of VC money came into Cambridge. That's about 5 billion pounds.
Across the campus, we're not just delivering this lab building, we're also delivering a fitted workspace, HQ office space, which is going to target the likes of quantum computing companies, AI companies, tech companies, and professional services companies, so that we almost build an ecosystem within the Cambridge ecosystem itself. A good example of this is in First-Step, which is one of the buildings on Journey Campus where we're delivering the first private, central lab incubator to the Cambridge market. Being central is so important, these early stage companies in terms of access to amenity, proximity to faculty, and also from a sustainable transport perspective. I think the difference in our relationship with Aviva Investors is that we have an incubator full of interesting occupiers, they've got a VC network, so the two are aligned in terms of a goal to help facilitate innovation at Cambridge.
In essence, Journey Campus is a model for future investment, showing how pension capital, when deployed strategically, can drive regional growth, support national priorities and deliver sustainable outcomes for savers.
