Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Welcome to OxTalks, powered by OxLEP and supported by law firm Mills & Reeve. OxTalks is your partner in tackling business challenges and achieving your goals, giving an insight into the great work that OxLEP does to support local organisations and communities. OxTalks host Howard Bentham talks to successful leaders from Oxfordshire and beyond to hear their advice to help your business flourish.
[00:00:00] Howard Bentham: Hello there, and good to have you along. I'm Howard Bentham and this is OxTalks, the podcast powered by OxLEP, the local enterprise partnership for Oxfordshire, and sponsored by leading national law firm Mills & Reeve. If you're new to these podcasts, OxTalks aims to discuss current issues in business and explore areas of interest in conversation with some genuinely remarkable and inspirational leaders. Every one of my guests is keen to acknowledge the valuable support that's available from OxLEP and how it could be crucial in helping your company or organisation prosper. Geographically, our focus is on Oxfordshire's businesses in these podcasts, but naturally you may well be listening to us outside of the county, many of the issues we experience here will be very similar to the ones that you're potentially facing where you are.
Please join in the conversation and share any thoughts and feedback. Our social media is a great way to get in touch. We are @OxfordshireLEP on X and Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership on LinkedIn. You can raise a question for future discussions or leave your thoughts on the topics we discuss. Please use the email address on the podcast description and we look forward to hearing from you.
In this edition, we'll explore why should you invest in Oxfordshire? Whether this investment is into startups or established businesses, boosting SMEs or multinationals, Oxfordshire's business landscape, and particularly the science and innovation sector, is a key growth area. The facilities at Science Parks in Harwell and Culham, plus those at Oxfordshire's universities, make a genuinely significant impact which is wide reaching and often world leading. To get an idea of the value of this sector, pre-pandemic figures show that every £1 invested in University of Oxford research and knowledge exchange activities generated £10.30 to the wider UK economy. Oxfordshire is one of only four county areas nationally which is a net contributor to the UK Exchequer, with the county generating 23.5 billion worth of GVA in real terms each year. This, therefore, is a multi billion pound sector. Which is not just economically vital locally, but of national significance too.
However, Oxfordshire has a number of international competitors, which will all be striving for investment as well. Silicon Valley and Boston in the US, plus of course locations in Japan, China, Germany and the Netherlands all spring to mind. Our OxTalks guest has been instrumental in supporting research and innovation businesses here. He is the founder of Mission Street, a specialist investor, operator and developer of companies in this sector. Their current portfolio comprises of over 1.5 million square feet of committed projects in key strategic locations within Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol. I'm delighted to welcome to OxTalks, Artem Korolev.
Artem, good to talk to you and thanks for being our guest on OxTalks. Should we start by learning a bit more about your organisation Mission Street? How it came about and how it supports the innovation sector?
[00:03:29] Artem Korolev: Okay, so it's been an interesting sort of six and a half, nearly seven years now as Mission Street. So I'd been through a buildup of another real estate startup to quite a large company. So that's what has now become BentallGreenOak at the time was called GreenOak and I had a really good experience helping to build a real estate business from when it was four of us to quite a significant investment manager and towards the end of that, what I was seeing was a number of trends happening at the same time. Right? So trend one was that commercialisation of research was becoming a bigger thing in the UK and you saw a lot of these shifts, particularly in places like Oxford, where with the advent of what is now OSCE with increasing venture investment, spin out activity was increasing significantly from the university. So the academics were always there, right? The amazing university you have here and you have elsewhere in the UK were always there. It was that shift that actually let's bring this into the real world and let's commercialise it and let's go a bit further than licensing agreements with other companies and then the overlay of that was really the real estate story. So one of the challenges of the real estate world more generally, which is shifting considerably now is that historically you had standardised buildings and very long leases and so the approach was unlike pretty much any other form of business. It was an investment. I'm going to invest money into a building. I'm going to build a building. I will put a For Let sign on it. I will get agents on it and I will lease it for a 15 year period, you know, pay my rent every quarter and that's the nature of the relationship, and I think real estate in general has shifted quite a bit now onto much more what does the customer want and how do I facilitate that and provide a service to that customer and particularly in the space of innovation, whether that's life sciences or other sides of research, that's more critical because these companies are revolving significantly quicker because their needs are more operationally complex and their needs are more technically complex and the landscape when I was setting up Mission Street was one where you still had largely very traditional landlords and I mean, we think about the word landlord and tenant, it's a very feudal type of terminology, I think people now are trying to use the word customer, which is probably more normal and that's shifted, right? So what was happening is most landlords, most developers did not want to touch science related space, it was considered very complicated, and so you had a number of issues.
Issue one was that actually delivering space suitable and being sufficiently hands on to understand the needs of the customer in the research space was not something many were willing to do and so you had lots of examples of occupiers becoming reluctant developers and essentially having to go through planning and convert their space. There was a lot of that going on around Oxfordshire at the time and if you think about it, that's not the company's core business model, that's not their core element in terms of expertise and it's not where they have buying power versus the contracting world, for example and it's not good use of funds because the cost of money for a fast growing innovation business is significantly higher than for a real estate investor and the other thing that was happening is, you know, you had a situation coming out of the increasing commercialisation, increasing investment was a step change in the real estate market here.
So, Oxford, if you speak to the people who have been specialists here from a real estate standpoint for a long period of time was a city where rents lingered in with a 20 in front of it for years and years. We're obviously in a completely different world now and the reason we're in a completely different world is because there has been this shift of the innovation ecosystem and this creation of new research driven businesses in Oxford, creating this demand. So we wanted to tackle it and I think the final point I sort of wanted to cover in my monologue on this question is essentially there was and is an undersupply of space, which is a significant constraint on the growth of these companies and we can discuss that further. But it wasn't just the quantity of space, it was also the quality of space, which was the issue and if we think about what was and still is a very large part of stock for sciences in the UK, these were glass boxes in the middle of the countryside with no transport connections, no amenity, and no design quality and this was in an environment where you had, you know, the likes of Google creating amazing workspaces in King's Cross where you would get all of that, and you're competing often with, for overlapping talent and that didn't make sense and I think this is where we wanted to shift the business model to line up with more global trends like open innovation and like the shift to more urban innovation.
[00:08:13] Howard Bentham: And what you do that's different to anyone else I can see is that you follow the whole life cycle. You're going from discovery startups, maybe to R&D, to manufacturing, you're helping that whole life cycle of the business. Not just as you say, in that sort of traditional landlord tenant type way.
[00:08:31] Artem Korolev: Well, I think that goes to the core of our approach. So what we like to do is we like to secure an investment in a particular cluster, right? So again, we can talk about Oxford more specifically, and then, you know, scale out within that cluster. So for us, what is really key to make an investment is where we can build significant critical mass in a particular location, because what that critical mass gives us is the ability to build up very deep relationships with the key stakeholders and anchors of the ecosystem, the universities, their tech transfer departments, venture funds, et cetera, and then all the way through to the bigger corporates, and this is my point about real estate. We're not starting from, well, there's an interesting investment theme, so we're going to build lab buildings. We're starting from the other end of what is going on in a particular cluster and how do we deliver that need? How do we cater for what the customer wants? And our ideal outcome, therefore, is that we can go and sort of help that whole scaling process and build very long term relationships with the businesses with which we work and building the critical mass that we have is very beneficial to that because if someone has got one building, they don't have the intel, they can't see where the trends are heading as well and I think this is a key point takes four or five years to get a building built four or five years in the timeline of these companies is way too long and so you're forecasting where things will go, which you can only do if you're sewn in, so to speak, to the ecosystem. And then I think the other point is the flexibility point, you know, we're not running a flexible office operation, that's not a particularly viable business model for the sector, but what we are doing is offering a lot more flexibility than many others are because we have this critical mass. So we may have a longer term relationship with an occupier. If they want to move into one of our other buildings and we help them grow, it means we can display more flexibility there than if we had only one building and you know, they say we want to scale up and leave, well, we can't really facilitate that. So that's the other benefit, I guess, of building out the scale.
[00:10:35] Howard Bentham: Let's find out a bit more about you. You went to Cambridge University. You speak three languages. You've worked in Moscow. Come on. What's the story?
[00:10:41] Artem Korolev: Well, it depends how long a discussion you want to have on my story. But I mean, the short, the languages are not my achievement. They're a result of my upbringing. So I was born in well, it was called the USSR still then. My family are all in science or advanced engineering or related fields like that and I'm probably the most undereducated of them actually and don't have a PhD, which my grandma doesn't cease reminding me of every time I see her. And then when the country was collapsing, heading into the nineties, we emigrated and we ended up complete other side of the world in New Zealand. I used to have a Kiwi accent once. It was an amazing opportunity for us as a family, but it came with a lot of challenges because you know, my parents are all metallurgists, both of them, and their PhDs in metallurgy is irrelevant in an agricultural country where there are no steel mills, there is no industrial production and so well, they ended up requalifying into other jobs around telecoms on the engineering side and then we ended up moving to the Netherlands, hence again, language number two and my mix of accent and then from there I got into Cambridge and stayed in the UK. So UK is very much home now, but my accent is a bit of a mess.
[00:12:00] Howard Bentham: Tell us about your motivation to start your own business aside from trying to keep your nan happy, the disappointment of not getting a PhD.
[00:12:07] Artem Korolev: I think my nan would rather I was an academic than starting my own business, so I'm not sure that's keeping her happy. But I mean motivation, I think there are a number of things. One's personal, the other is kind of market opportunity, right? And interest in tackling this.
I think, you know, the personal side of things, I've always been quite entrepreneurial, you know, being born at the time in a communist country, none of my immediate predecessors had opportunities to be entrepreneurial and from my standpoint, I was kind of interested in doing my own thing and being independent and having the ability to realise my creative vision, really being the big driver of these things, which you can only do if you're building your own company. So it was very much my intention from an early age. I dabbled in various bits and pieces through my teenage years, usually unsuccessfully at the time, but it was good learning and then when I went into the real estate industry, that was always the plan in some shape or form and I got a good education helping build another business before.
[00:13:07] Howard Bentham: Your primary investment avenue is through a joint venture with BentallGreenOak, you've touched on these guys already. Tell us how that came about and what the partnership now looks like, because I mean, it is instrumental in what you do.
[00:13:21] Artem Korolev: Yeah. So I mean, we are an independent specialist operating platform and as Mission Street, I'll sort of explain us and then explain that particular partnership as well. So, you know, my objective from the start was to put the absolutely best management team together that can tackle this thesis, keep our clients happy and scale the business for the long term and I'm very proud of the work that we've put together an amazing team with deep expertise in the development side. So collectively built over 2 million square foot of laboratory and research space, which given this is a nascent sector is more than most, and that helps when we're workshopping space for customers and we can figure out how we can get them into more efficient space, more cost effectively, which is quite critical in the current environment. But also operations, asset management, investment, commercial. So we built out this very high quality platform that we'll continue to build and we'll sort of in a nimble way evolve as our sector becomes more institutional. What we needed to do obviously, because this is a capital intensive sector and we also need the right partner in terms of building up the real estate that understands the sector that has some experience from elsewhere and BGO has invested in the sector in North America which is quite useful to understand the challenges and opportunities there and so, you know, when I set up the business originally, we were doing development and asset management. So we were working with others as their local partner and then as the investment opportunity became clearer, we had quite a lot of interest from different institutional investors in partnering with us and building up a platform and we spoke to quite a lot of them at the time, you know, the big benefit we had is actual track record, having delivered this type of space and ended up doing a joint venture with my old colleagues and, you know, the big driver of that really is trust, right?
You know, we can work through, we can have agreements and disagreements, but the key thing is that it's a collaborative relationship with people who, you know, we know we're all trying to do the right thing here and I think in building a business, that's really important in terms of you know, securing investment investor relationships and that's been a very successful collaboration. We've built that up and you know, that particular partnership, you know, that's got a committed pipeline of one and a half million square feet. So we're one of the bigger specialists in the UK.
[00:15:48] Howard Bentham: Oxford is one of the key portfolio locations alongside Cambridge and Bristol, interestingly. Why Oxford in particular? What does it have that other areas of the UK are perhaps lacking?
[00:15:59] Artem Korolev: Well, it's a quick commute from my house because I live in Oxfordshire. So that was a big driver, but on a separate note, I think, I mean, look what Oxford has, and this is important when looking at any location, right? Is you need the anchors, right? i.e. what is the reason why a cluster is going to form in a particular location? Because you know, sciences has been flavor of the month in my world, in the real estate world, but you can't just go and build buildings in random places where there isn't a fundamental reason for companies to actually go and so the starting point of that is you have the universities, right? And the benefits that they bring and the world class, you know, always top five academic and research strengths that these universities have. The shift you're then layering onto that is, you know, you can have a good university, but from our perspective, you also need company creation and you also need company growth, right? And the increasing investment and increasing spin out activity that I was referring to earlier, I think is really key to that, right? Because without that the whole thesis of what we're trying to support is not relevant and I think it's also important that you have this range of companies. So you need early stage company creation, but in isolation without the capital to support it, without the workforce to support it, right? Because, you know, if you're going to join a startup and that's the only startup, that's a very high personal risk for somebody. If they go to work for a startup and that fails, but actually there are 400 startups around there, then that's a much lower risk approach for people from a personal standpoint and that critical mass, you know, this whole principle of a shift from big R&D corporates doing all of their research internally to open innovation in this principle that it's a collaboration of lots of different companies ranging from M&A, partnerships and more loose collaborations, I think is really important.
So that critical mass where you, the whole is more than the sum of the parts, I should say is I think really important in Oxford and wider Oxfordshire actually in terms of how that links together, so was the starting point. The piece beyond that really is how do we provide something that is useful for that and act as a facilitator for that growth and we spent a lot of time thinking about this and I think one of the things we do always with Mission Street is we are not trying to build science parks, right? What we're trying to do is build parts of cities or locations or clusters where there is science and that's a distinction really in that regard and it's you know, it's what is emerging in the US, it's what's emerging in Europe as a theme and the reason for that is, you know, connectivity to public transport, it's connectivity to amenities, it's a much more blurred line between people living generally in the area and what's going on in the research, which I think is a really important thing and so that's sort of been the shift, and when looking at Oxford, one of the things that struck us is that Oxford does not really have urban innovation, and this was a number of years ago when we were originally acquiring this, so there was this overlap where on one hand you had a city where all of the existing stock and infrastructure was relatively distant from the city centre and on the other hand, you had the Botley Road Retail Park, which, you know, is a situation where you have low rise, high car park buildings, currently takes me 9 minutes and 12 seconds of leisurely walk to the railway station, the park and ride is across the road from you as well, if you live in Oxford, you can cycle and you had this retail park, which probably is in the wrong location from the perspective of city planning and indeed, you know, our first acquisition, which is now called Inventor, you know, that had been empty for a year, so you're overlapping with the fact that the way retail works as a sector is also changing because of the internet and so when we had this overlay where on one hand the current use is not the right use and not functioning, and on the other hand the future use is in demand and I think this is the key point beyond just talking about high level stats, which are all over the press, you know, X thousand square feet of demand, Y thousand square feet of supply. It's also what is the nature of that supply, right? Because not all supply is equal and fulfills the same purpose. And so that was the idea, and Inventor we're going to be finishing in the next couple of weeks in terms of the base build and then we're fitting out fully half of the building as well for companies that need more of a plug and play option and that's a 65,000 square foot laboratory and office building purpose designed for our customers and we're having some very positive conversations on that space and workshopping with a number of companies what we're going to deliver them at the moment and then Fabrica was stage two, so Inventor we wanted to turn around more quickly to deal with the immediate need and Fabrica is hopefully getting planning soon and the idea with Fabrica is it's a much bigger new build project which can facilitate further growth for the companies as they grow out of Inventor and potentially bigger companies because one of the disadvantages Oxford has versus Cambridge for example, or internationally is it's got this great startup early stage ecosystem, it doesn't have the AstraZeneca, for example, here. And I think there's a great opportunity both in terms of bringing in these bigger companies who want to benefit from the ecosystem or indeed, you know, acquisitions. So there are a number of acquisitions where big international pharma has bought Oxford and Oxfordshire startups. Well, can that be moved from buying IP to actually establishing a toehold and then building out to benefit from what the region offers? And I think that sort of building like Fabrica is the right sort of thing, because if you're an executive flying in and you'll come out of the train station, you'll see the beautiful city center of Oxford. You know, from what you're used to, you will rationally move over to a near urban location and I think the wider changes to the West End, the stuff we're doing, the wider retail park changes, you know, eventually Osney Mead, Oxpens, et cetera, this new West End area will be a very primary area for innovation more in the international example.
[00:22:11] Howard Bentham: Have you got areas of Oxford and Oxfordshire in mind as the key growth areas for science and innovation? Do you sort of sit back and look at the map and think we're missing some activation there perhaps, or is it not done on a geographical sort of identification like that?
[00:22:27] Artem Korolev: It's not done on the geographical identification. I think it's done, I mean, I think the starting point is what is the space and service typology that's missing, right? So Inventor is for scale ups, largely the discussions we're having on that. Fabrica's got even bigger floor plates, so it's largely the next stage of growth for some of these companies and others.
I think one thing we're very carefully looking at is an interim building, which is for companies which are not quite ready yet to be very independent in Inventor, but probably a bit too big to be in the likes of the Bioescalator or Wood Center or some of the other fantastic incubators and earlier stage facilities we have in the region. So it's more that we're trying to create these stepping stones, which goes back to your original point on partnering with businesses and aiding their scale up and then when we establish where that is, then it becomes what is the right location for that use rather than necessarily starting from a map. But the critical thing is proximity to the anchors, right? I think it's really important and then the second point is proximity to amenities, public transport, et cetera. We try to create space near infrastructure rather than create space and then have to argue to get infrastructure there, which is a slightly different dynamic.
[00:23:42] Howard Bentham: What about competition or the fight for investment against the likes of Silicon Valley, Boston, Beijing, the places I mentioned in the introduction? What do you think is the key to increasing Oxfordshire's position globally?
[00:23:54] Artem Korolev: Well, I mean, I think there are a couple of things. I think, and I hear this when you know, we are long-term investors, so I participate in a lot of kind of civic driven conversations, including those that OxLEP facilitates and others, right? And I think there is a risk of being complacent, right when there is an amazing university that has got the heritage that Oxford University has, it's very easy to get very confident about a permanent global position, and I think something I have heard from people, you know, when pushing for scaling and building the size of this ecosystem sustainably has been, you know, well, maybe we're the little niche sort of nimble smaller environment, and that could be true within reason, but if sufficient scale is not reached, and by scale I mean amount of companies, scale of companies, retaining some bigger companies rather than only losing them at a relatively early stage, availability of capital, availability of people at different levels of seniority and roles within companies and real estate and infrastructure, you need a certain size to actually be competitive, particularly as the whole world is investing massively in scaling up and I think, you know, to give some figures for people on this, from a real estate standpoint, which is my area of expertise, you know, Oxford's existing commercial science stock is about 1 million square feet, Cambridge is four. Boston and the other Cambridge is 52 million square feet and they're building about 15, which is more than the entire stock in the UK put together. The San Francisco Bay Area is 33 million and if we benchmark again and we look at what's the equivalent amount of space that Oxford has internationally, our benchmark is not Boston and all of these other top ecosystem places, it's Chicago and Houston, which if you look in rankings of spin out creation or venture investment are nowhere compared to where Oxford is, you know, Denver or Boulder in the UK, it's the 12th largest market in the U.S and their requirements for lab space is similar to Oxford, but they've got 4 million square feet. So they have four times as much space that we have. So I think the reason I'm mentioning these figures is not that, well, let's go and copy Boston because you can't, it's bigger, it's a very different proposition. We physically cannot, nor should we, because there won't be the demand for it, build 40 million square feet of space. I think that's not the point, but the point is that difference given the quality of what is produced here and also produced environments which are actually thinking about what the companies need, not just monolithic science buildings. I think, you know, we need to be more ambitious really on that, but I think clearly things need to be unlocked for that to happen, right? Infrastructure needs to be unlocked, you know, discussions like power, discussions like transport and dealing with traffic, which is again why I have this strong view that you need to build near public transport infrastructure and that's where you create the critical mass because I spend enough time stuck on the A34 roundabout at the moment, I think I spent 40 minutes there the other day just getting through the roundabout and that's therefore not a sustainable approach involving the local community, sharing local benefits, right? So this is going beyond business and there are actually useful spillovers, et cetera, et cetera, we can keep going, but I think we need to not be complacent, we need to not pat ourselves on the back and say, you know, we are a top global innovation ecosystem. We're a top global university, we have some absolutely amazing companies and people, but you know, we do need to grow to be more competitive.
[00:27:36] Howard Bentham: This is a good time to bring in OxLEPs Richard Byard, Director of Business Development, into the conversation. Welcome to OxTalks, Richard. In your experience in this sector, how crucial is collaboration in the innovation ecosystem?
[00:27:51] Richard Byard: Absolutely crucial. I think Artem has just described the collaborative environment that everyone is seeking to achieve and it's collaboration across multiple partners. It's the anchors, anchor institutions, universities and major corporates, it's academia, it's communities, it's a transport ecosystem. Collaboration is absolutely front and center of any successful ecosystem and we're delighted that, you know, in Oxfordshire we do have that fantastic approach to collaboration, which has seen a significant step change in how we're attracting significant investors, such as Mission Street and others, into what is a fantastic ecosystem and an ecosystem that drives innovation is underpinned by innovation and what we need to do in addition to some of the challenges that were set out is actually how do we spread that to all communities and ensure that the residents of Oxfordshire get to benefit from some of the fantastic world class innovation that takes place on their doorstep.
[00:28:47] Howard Bentham: And what's OxLEP offering in practical terms to help grow investment? I know you've had your recent impact report suggested you've helped land just under 300 foreign direct investment projects in the county since 2017, 6,000 jobs you've supported, that's incredible.
[00:29:02] Richard Byard: It is absolutely and something we're very proud of and that couldn't be achieved without collaboration it couldn't be achieved without the ecosystem working together to land those investors and what we do, we work with national government with department for business and trade and with investors and we will seek to identify a strategic partnership, supply chain opportunities, links with academia, but also again, links into skills and into employment opportunities.
So think of us to a degree as a connective tissue across the various elements of the ecosystem. If we don't know, the right contact, the right stakeholder, we will know somebody who knows the right stakeholder and we can share that and create those bridges, create those opportunities for investment and for investors.
[00:29:44] Howard Bentham: Artem, let's share some stories then, what examples of organisations that are making waves in the county science and innovation sector, who's caught your eye?
[00:29:53] Artem Korolev: Well, I mean, there are a lot, and it would be a bit of a disservice if I start discussing specific companies and not other companies, I'll sort of risk offending people, but there are some pretty amazing organisations that have either scaled up and raised substantial money even in a given time period, right? There are the likes of the Mirrorbios of this world and DJS, which have made significant exits and attracted, you know, very large international investors to Oxfordshire and I think one of the things I really like here is that there is a significant diversity of research typologies, right? If you go to Boston and you know, I was there last December in the airport, they're asking, you know, standard U. S. border security questions, what do you do? It is very heavily pharma and biotech, Oxford's got that, but Oxford also has a significant area around quantum, it's also got a very strong green tech environment, and I think, you know, maximising the opportunity from this cross sector collaboration that could happen here is going to be very key.
[00:30:52] Howard Bentham: And when you say cross sector, talk about cross geography here, because as we said at the introduction, it's Oxford, Cambridge and Bristol that you're looking at as far as your portfolio. What about the collaboration between those sort of geographical areas and companies there?
[00:31:06] Artem Korolev: So I mean, look, I think in general, the UK can benefit and have a stronger competitive position by having a slightly wider proposition than only specific markets, because back to my earlier point, we're never going to have the scale of Boston. It's probably not beyond carrying capacity to try and do that. However presenting, whether that's the golden triangle or an even wider definition of that, and linking supply chains, linking businesses in a way that for a wider proposition, I think, can be very beneficial. I think trying to do that in reality is rather challenging, you know, a lot of companies we deal with are very either Oxford focused or Cambridge focused and not necessarily moving between the two.
There are examples of companies in Bristol that have come out of Bristol and moved to Cambridge, for example, where one of the reasons was lack of space, which we're trying to address. But I think to the extent that we can in our very small role, because remember, we're an enabler, the actual driver of this, you know, that's ultimately our customers. These are these amazing companies with amazing innovative people and I think what we can do as a facilitator with things like if you're in one of our buildings, you can hot desk in another of our buildings and the sort of the operational layer that we put on top of the physical infrastructure and introductions and facilitating things and we do a lot of engagement with our advisory board as well, who are on the science and investment side, to the extent we can help that we of course will, because I think it would be quite beneficial.
[00:32:41] Howard Bentham: Just picking up on some of the collaborative points that Artem's making, Richard. How could OxLEP help make the most of the assets and knowledge, if you like, in the Oxford Cambridge region? I know a lot of your work in recent years has focused on showcasing key sectors in the region, particularly at national and international events.
[00:32:58] Richard Byard: Absolutely yeah, and we very much engage with the Oxford Cambridge Pan Regional Partnership. We recognise the value in that and if you've got an area that's got a relatively small footprint globally, by comparison, that's got two of the world's best universities on its eastern and western axis, you've got to take the opportunity to maximise that and to really sweat the commercial value of the research and R&D, and that's what we're looking to do through working with the Pan Regional Partnership and also with government departments for business and trade at international events like MIPIM, but also UK Reef as well, and we're just developing UK Investment Atlas within the PRP. That's drawing together some of the investment opportunities that are available, so things like the Cowley Branch Line, very relevant to where we're sat today. How can we improve the public transport access from this site into Oxford and then onto the National Rail system? Cowley Branch Line is part of that. If we can raise the awareness of that and other investment opportunities on the global stage, then we think that's absolutely worth doing. But equally, again, there are some very focused community benefits through working across that geography. If you look at some of the communities there, some of the key skills that we have, but also reflect and look differently in terms of, okay, where's the market taking us and what skills will be required in the next decade or so, and how can we work collaboratively across that area to ensure that young people and those in the education system currently actually have the skills that your tenants require after moving forward, because you know, that's a key plank of and a key part of a successful ecosystem is that supply chain of skills of talent that will serve your clients, your customers, and ensure that we as an area, locally within Oxford, but also across the area to Cambridge, have the skills available to succeed, drive attraction and to continue to support UK PLC. We are sat in one of only four areas in the UK that's a net contributor to UK PLC, we need to drive that. So investment in Oxfordshire helps support the rest of the UK moving forward, and that's something we should be very proud of.
[00:34:57] Howard Bentham: It strikes me, obviously, you're different organisations with different functions, but ultimately you're both enablers. So conversations between you two are crucial to trying to make these things happen. How's the work with OxLEP been fundamental in some of the projects you're involved with?
[00:35:11] Artem Korolev: Yes, I mean, look, I think we've had a fantastic collaboration with them. I think they add a lot of value to Oxfordshire and to the ecosystem, and that's through a number of fronts, right? And it goes both ways, right? In terms of sort of connecting us to key individuals and key organisations, when we made our first investment in terms of helping build the profile of what we're doing in this two way street and in their role as a facilitator for foreign direct investment and new companies entering and trying to create, find that physical infrastructure base, all the way through to the other direction, you know, we've had conversations with the OxLEP with some of the challenges we've had with power infrastructure, for example, and some of their engagement on that with central government, which is one of the big constraints in Oxfordshire, so it's been a very positive dynamic.
I think if I may, I just wanted to touch on some of the stuff that were raised earlier about the sort of the spreading the benefit and the skills piece, because I think that's a really important piece of this puzzle, right? So there's been a lot of discussion with physical infrastructure around what we do of, you know, let's make this more open to the local community and I think the key bit there is that just taking the fence off a development is not really sufficient to create that solution because if what you have is a series of buildings and lots of car parking between them, taking a fence down, you know, people aren't going to go there and well, if they will, then they'll loiter around and people will wonder what they're doing there, that's not, I think, the point. The point is if you're creating this concentration of highly creative, highly innovative people, there has got to be a spillover to the wider community, there's got to be a spillover where people may not have had the exposure of considering a career STEM or in tech or in creative related industries where they see this from an early enough age, where they can work towards that and they can have this opportunity and I think there's the physical piece of, you know, not just taking the fence down, but creating the public realm, creating the amenity, creating, you know, cafes, creating museum space, creating festivals, et cetera, and then also how this is run. So all of our facilities, the security line is within the actual buildings. It's not around the buildings as this sort of barbed wire fence and guard tower, you know, the cafe we're doing in Fabrica, for example is usable by people living or whoever wants to use it as well as people in the building and you're blurring that gap. You're making sure, you know, in Cambridge we have a 24 acre master plan there and we have a climbing wall, we have lots of playgrounds, we've got lots of stuff that makes it interesting for the local community to actually come in and then they get this exposure and we've been calling it for years, science on show or, you know, you've always had public art and developments. We're calling what we're doing public science have actually being an active facilitator for, you know, acting as a facilitator of apprenticeships and internships. Fabrica is the first building where we're actually voluntarily, it's mandated Oxford Living Wage for example, in that building and even for the cafe operator or facilities management or anyone that has anything to do with the building. So I think that's a really important piece. We all have a responsibility as long term stakeholders in Oxfordshire.
[00:38:30] Howard Bentham: Artem and Richard, thank you both for the moment. We'll chat again shortly. And thanks for listening to OxTalks, the podcast powered by the Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership and sponsored by leading national law firm Mills & Reeve. If you want to get in touch with the team at OxLEP to comment on what you've been hearing, find us on social media. We're on X @OxfordshireLEP or via LinkedIn, search for Oxfordshire Local Enterprise Partnership. Perhaps you run a company or organisation that's looking for some specific help or simply need a steer to the most appropriate business advice available. Why not try the OxLEP Business Support Tool?
[00:39:14] OxLEP Business Support Tool: OxLEP's Business Support Tool is here to help your company, whether you're just starting out, growing or ready to take on a new business challenge. If you're looking for the latest advice and support, complete our Business Support Tool today and get set to receive a bespoke action plan for your organisation. Head to OxLEPbusiness.co.uk to find out more.
[00:39:38] Mills & Reeve: Are you looking for high quality, tailored legal advice in Oxfordshire? At Mills & Reeve, we're passionate about supporting the community and strive to keep local work local through our expertise, contacts and international network from our Oxford office. Our experience is vast, spanning areas such as commercial, corporate law, finance, ESG, employment, family, private client, and planning. We can achieve more together. To find out how we can help you, get in touch at www.mills-reeve.com.
[00:40:19] Howard Bentham: So let's chat more to Artem Korolev from Mission Street and look at some practical pointers, Artem, for businesses looking to invest or start up in Oxfordshire. Timing is a critical element in investment. So the UK government, for example, recently investing £520,000,000 into the life sciences sector, just announced in the autumn statement, is now the perfect time to invest in the area?
[00:40:42] Artem Korolev: So, I mean look, we're kind of acting on our view of this by putting significant investment into Oxfordshire and, you know, from our perspective, the opportunity here is pretty incredible in terms of these anchors, in terms of the cluster, in terms of the skills that are available here, so I think that's definitely the case. pipeline of companies emerging here is still incredibly strong, that doesn't mean there are challenges, right? I mean, the elephant in the room, we are in a more challenging global economy, it is more difficult to raise money and this goes both for our customers and from a real estate standpoint, frankly, in terms of building that infrastructure. But I mean, the long term theme is backed by demographics, aging population, health, environment, and I think Oxford and Oxfordshire is as good as, you know, placed as anyone really in helping tackle those issues, so I think the opportunity is definitely there.
[00:41:36] Howard Bentham: And what about reaching a global audience from here? We can talk about local issues and you mentioned about sitting in traffic on the A34 and all the issues that we have around here. But obviously we want to look out and not look in, so reaching that worldwide audience, how do we go about that?
[00:41:52] Artem Korolev: I think it's continuing to develop the strong brand. I think it's initiatives like the ones that the OxLEP is doing and doing this as joined up a way as possible really in terms of promoting the region internationally and sort of being more coordinated between private sector, public sector, central government, local government, etc.
But I think we also have to unlock some of the issues that you alluded to from a local standpoint, because I think Oxford has an amazing brand, which comes from hundreds and hundreds of years really as an amazing location from an innovation standpoint and I think people internationally are aware of that brand. I think once you've got people interested and they're looking, then they get hit by all of the local complexities and local challenges that need to be unlocked and I think we all need to work together very collaboratively to try and unlock them, because I don't think we necessarily need to sell Oxford as an incredible, knowledge intensive location, it is.
[00:42:53] Howard Bentham: Richard, maybe you want to add on that. I mean, great brand, but shame about the infrastructure.
[00:42:57] Richard Byard: Great brand, improving infrastructure, an awful lot of opportunity. I think you made some really interesting and very telling points. What we need to do is ensure that we can maximize the brand, engage all the key stakeholders, you mentioned some, you know, North American locations, that's predominantly based around life sciences, but we've got an incredibly successful life sciences community in Oxfordshire. How do we link those two?
Well, we do that through engaging with the overseas posts, with UK government but also through attendance at international events as well, and really take the Oxfordshire message to the various markets we're looking to attract and if we think about, I mentioned life sciences, but there's Space Satellite, there's Quantum, there are some fantastic areas and sectors where we really are world leading and perhaps we haven't banged the drum loud enough, but certainly that's something we're very keen to do. And I think there's also the element of when we get the investors, when we get potential investors interested, what we're really good at, and this is down to people like Artem, Mission Street and others, is actually having that team Oxfordshire and putting on a show, creating the right team around that investor, whereby we can address their concerns around, and opportunities around skills, around transport, around housing, around quality of life. Just make sure that there is that team Oxfordshire approach that sits behind the investor, provides them with the information they need, do a series of show and tell visits around various locations because we've mentioned a lot about the commercial development opportunity was absolutely right. People need houses, they need quality of life. And we've got that quality of life offer and we shouldn't understate it, and there are some fantastic opportunities there for families to come and relocate to Oxfordshire, fantastic quality of life, and also we've got some world class leisure facilities. You only have to go into the north of the county, Blenheim, but access to London, access to London is key, which is where, again, if we think about what I said earlier about the Cowley branch line, if we can provide that transport link into Oxford and then direct into London, that's a key attractor to investors. So yeah, there's a lot happening on the global stage, but there's equally a lot more we can do, but it's a collaborative approach, and that goes back to the start of the conversation. We cannot do this in isolation, we don't do it in isolation, we've actually got a really good collaborative team approach to supporting investment and supporting Oxfordshire.
[00:45:16] Howard Bentham: And if you like, at the start of that pipeline are the university graduates and the spin outs that are looking for the premises that you're helping to provide here. Richard, an OxLEP view on this, I mean, do you think the spin outs are key to growing sectors like life sciences for the future? And what's OxLEP doing to support this?
[00:45:34] Richard Byard: Spin outs are absolutely key. So there's a fantastic graph that we use that looks at the plot spin outs over the past decade or so and probably the early part of 2010 to 2014, it was a relatively steady pipeline. 2015, it exploded. It really did explode. Now that is traced back to the support provided by OSE, Oxford Sciences Enterprises now, whereby effectively they recognised that the opportunity for spin outs that were emerging from the world class academia, looking at, okay, we're going to spin out, but how do we commercialise that? How do we maximise it? How do we provide that new company with the opportunity to grow, to thrive, and to prosper? And they put that protective blanket around them, that Team Oxfordshire approach again and we're now seeing 1, 600 spin outs in Oxfordshire from the University. Seventy five, eighty percent of those have been over the past four or five years, so we're doing something right there. What we need to do is make sure that we can continue to nurture them, continue to help them thrive, but also retain them locally, and how do we retain them locally? And it's organisations like Mission Street that have recognised that, and are providing a series of commercial opportunities, commercial infrastructure opportunities for them to move on to and that's key, and again it comes back to that Team Oxfordshire approach. There are various players in the team at different times, but it is very much that Team Oxfordshire approach that's driving success.
[00:46:55] Howard Bentham: I Imagine you get a lot of spin outs perhaps knocking on your door, how do you choose the right one?
[00:46:59] Artem Korolev: Well, I mean, I think, how do you choose the right one? I mean it really depends on what we have available in terms of space at a particular time, and whether, you know, the nature of the business and the nature of what we're providing is aligned, right? So, for example, on Inventor, we're dealing with reasonably further along grow on companies. I've had direct emails from founders of companies of two people who are sort of looking at what their next step is really in their journey and we don't have that type of space yet within the Oxfordshire market, but I'll always answer them and people are welcome to email me. I will get back to them and give some advice and actually put them in front of the right space or the right people they should have a conversation with because at the end of the day, this is about building long term relationships and having this Team Oxfordshire mentality. This can't be solved by OxLEP or by Mission Street or by anybody else, because these are complex issues that need to be unblocked to build on the success, which are multi party issues by the nature.
[00:48:04] Howard Bentham: It's a continual sort of evolvement, if you like, of space in the county, Richard. I mean, the likes of Harwell, Milton Park, Oxford Science Park, they're crucial to this growth. If we're going to continue this way, that evolution needs to continue.
[00:48:20] Richard Byard: Very much yeah, and they all recognise the opportunity, they've all got their various build out plans over the next period and equally, they all understand the need for, I think, flexibility. In your introduction, you spoke about the changing face of the landlord client relationship. It needs to be flexible, it needs to, you're not going to get fifteen year leases in the way the market used to operate. It's flexibility. I think the science parks are responding significantly to the commercial demand, so to the R&D space, the lab space, because that's where the opportunity is and that's very much an area they're responding to and again, just reflecting on your opening comments around the rent per square foot, it always used to be, twenty five, twenty six, twenty seven in Oxford City Centre, and there was an ambition probably six, seven, eight years ago to get to thirty five, to, Reading's on thirty five, let's get to thirty five. It's forty five plus now.
[00:49:12] Artem Korolev: The record has just been setfor office north of 60.
[00:49:15] Richard Byard: Yeah, its incredible.
[00:49:16] Artem Korolev: So just to illustrate.
[00:49:17] Richard Byard: The demand is there, and that itself will attract investment because there is that commercial opportunity there, and that's something we have to manage, but yeah, there is that demand coming through.
[00:49:27] Howard Bentham: Artem, just to begin to wrap up our conversation, Mission Street's mission and I quote is to quote, become the partner of choice for the UK's research and innovation sector, supporting the entire life cycle from discovery to R&D and manufacturing. How do you envisage achieving the mission, how would you sum it up?
[00:49:45] Artem Korolev: Well, to continue to stay close to the customer and to prospective customers, right? Because again, this goes back to my point of getting into the detail, having constant ongoing discussions, even when there isn't a particular commercial outcome at the moment. Same thing with the anchors, same thing, you know, as I alluded to our advisory board, I mean, all of them are company founders or top venture investors, a lot of whom have got very strong links to Oxford and I think having that constant and ongoing engagement and then responding to it, which goes back to my point of we're not going to scale for the sake of scaling, but what our ambition is to keep sort of staying close to the customer and continuing rolling out what that customer needs. Because as mentioned before, they are the drivers, we are the facilitator or one part of facilitating this and that's what we need to keep doing.
[00:50:39] Howard Bentham: And finally, what would be your top tips for someone wanting to start a business or invest in Oxfordshire? What would you say to them?
[00:50:46] Artem Korolev: I guess my top tip to starting a business is to plan properly ahead of starting that business in terms of what specific challenge you're actually trying to tackle and then do your research as to whether there is a need to tackle that challenge. I think having a plan, but then actually being very flexible on that plan in response to pivoting around and changing and responding to the environment. I mean, I've delivered a lot of business plans on particular projects before, and I'm yet to name very many where we've made money off was planned to drive the profit and we've not lost money on what we thought would be the risk. You know, you have to have a plan and you do the research and then it's being extremely nimble and fast to make decisions and sort of navigate the challenges of that.
I think in terms of specifically in Oxfordshire, I think it is really engaging with the right people who can help understand the pretty incredible resources and organisations and formal and informal links which exist here. This is the likes of OxLEP who are fantastic, this is the likes of, and someone will be offended if I don't mention them, but the likes of Advanced Oxford, for example, and the fantastic work that they've been doing as well, it's with the incubators which are in existence around the area, it's with access to the university in particular areas where they can collaborate and various entrepreneurship networks with the investment community, et cetera. I think the point is you've got the whole benefit of being in a cluster like this is you can derive a lot of benefit from being in a cluster and I think making sure that people are aware, and this goes back to my point where I have had people contact me directly, what I've tried to do and what I know that OxLEP do a very good job of is, well have you spoken to so and so or have you looked at these options because there is a lot that one can leverage and I know from my own experience, having now been involved in two business build outs, figuring out how to do things efficiently, get advice from people, get mentorship and piggyback off existing resources is really key to be successful.
[00:52:56] Howard Bentham: Artem, great to talk to you. Richard, thanks for your contribution as well. Huge thanks to Artem Korolev from Mission Street, a big thank you also to Richard Bayard from OxLEP as well and thank you for listening to OxTalks, sponsored by leading national law firm Mills & Reeve.
There are now a number of editions of OxTalks available from where you normally get your podcasts. Check out some of my previous conversations, including how to build your personal brand with Paul Wilkinson from Paul Wilkinson Photography, Fiona Reid, Associate Professor for the MSc Bioscience Entrepreneurship Programme at University College London, with some top tips on starting a new business, and the CEO at Bicester Motion and Bicester Heritage, Dan Geoghegan on what makes a great leader. All well worth a listen.
Please spread the word, tell your friends and colleagues about us, and if you feel so inclined, leave us a review. You can offer your thoughts and suggestions on our social channels and email your questions for inclusion in future editions too. The address is on the podcast description.
Business support in Oxfordshire is close at hand. The OxLEP business support tool can signpost you to expert help in a matter of minutes. It's definitely worth taking a look. You can find it on our website oxfordshirelep.com. But for now, from the whole OxLEP team, and from me, Howard Bentham, it's goodbye.