Navigating the Future of Oxford Sciences Enterprises with Ed Bussey

[00:00:00] Susannah de Jager: Welcome to Oxford+, the podcast series that takes you deep into the myths and truths of the Oxford investing landscape. I'm your host, Susannah de Jager and I've spent over 15 years in UK asset management.

[00:00:18] Susannah de Jager: My guest today is Ed Bussey.

[00:00:20] Susannah de Jager: Ed studied natural sciences at Cambridge University before starting his career serving in counter terrorism operations with the UK military and national security agencies. Ed recently took on the role as CEO of OSE, Oxford Science Enterprises, which was originally Oxford Science Innovation. As mentioned in my last interview with the OSI founder Dave Norwood, OSE is the largest university venture fund globally and has brought in over 1. 5 billion of capital to Oxford since its inception in 2015. Ed is a serial entrepreneur and leading UK technology expert having launched, scaled and successfully exited three venture-backed disruptive technology businesses.

[00:01:01] Susannah de Jager: I'm really pleased to have Ed here today, as one of the main messages of Oxford+ is to dispel myths and expose truths around Oxford. OSE is a huge part of the ecosystem and is often the subject of many of these. Ed's views and plans on how to disprove, overcome or dispel some of these will be exceptionally informative for anyone who has or thinks they should invest into Oxford. So, Ed, thank you so much for joining today.

[00:01:27] Ed Bussey: My pleasure, it's great to be here.

[00:01:29] Susannah de Jager: Wonderful.

[00:01:30] Susannah de Jager: So, how is it going? Five months in.

[00:01:33] Ed Bussey: It's the best job in the world, honestly, really. It's almost as if I had to design the ideal role for me, it's the culmination of everything I've done along my journey. I studied science, dare I say, at Cambridge rather than Oxford, but that gives me a, I

[00:01:50] Ed Bussey: saw that but yeah, but that does mean when I say Oxford is the number one research university in the world, I'm saying that very objectively based off the fact that that's the case. The period I spent in government is also proving to be very relevant and the last two decades, I've spent building disruptive technology companies from the ground up through to exit and fundamentally what OSE is doing, beyond investing, is building sort of world changing businesses. So to bring this all together in a leadership role is just perfect for me. I'm not pretending it's without its challenges, but I actually think this job is a real privilege, if I look at what we're doing and with the sorts of companies and the sort of impact that they're going to have and are having, is quite humbling actually.

[00:02:42] Susannah de Jager: I'm very pleased to hear that, that's wonderful. I've heard it said that in the UK there's a sort of criticism of venture capital, of which this is a particular kind of venture building out of universities, that it's often intermediated by financiers and accountants and that's a kind of complaint about the fact that it's not entrepreneurs. So you obviously do have, as you just referenced, a very entrepreneurial background. How do you think that's different in the way that you're approaching the new role?

[00:03:10] Ed Bussey: Yeah, so I'm lucky that on the same time I joined, I was joined by Jack Edmondson who's come in as our Chief Investment Officer and two parts really to the answer. One is, how do I see things differently? I guess first off, I am a founder. I've been through that journey and I know how painful it is, I've run out of money, I have had very difficult conversations with my investors, I have slept in the office, I have had sleepless nights, had to sacrifice all that goes with building a business, whether that's with family and friends and so on. So I come at this with a very natural empathy for what the founders of our businesses are going through and I think that's a really healthy perspective to have, because whether we agree with everything that our founders say, I know that at the end of the day, these are the people that need the most support and help and so that for me is front and center. So I'm really enjoying going out and getting time with the portfolio companies, the founders, and so on, we're doing site visits, Jack and I, you know, we'll be, we'll work our way through the whole portfolio, we're about 40 percent through the core portfolio already, so I think that perspective is a really helpful one.

[00:04:23] Susannah de Jager: You're like a peer, aren't you really?

[00:04:25] Ed Bussey: Yeah, I can speak to them as a peer. I can really relate to the decisions around, you know, the hard decisions and tradeoffs you're making maybe on a funding round and you take money from this investor or that investor and the things to watch out for the challenge in the UK, the pressure to sell early, and you know, I've been there and I know the conversations that I'd like to have had with my investors, but frankly never did. So I can then start to maybe be a more helpful, empathetic sounding board from the investor side. So I think that's important.

[00:04:56] Ed Bussey: The second part of the answer is with Jack, as I say, joining alongside me as CIO and OSE having split the role into two parts, frankly I am not clear how it could have been done properly as a merged role historically, because they're two completely different skill sets. So my role as CEO at OSE is to design a strategy and execute that strategy with a focus on how do we do that? How do we build and scale the organization efficiently? And what I've done all the way through my journey is work through in different sectors, how do you efficiently scale organizations and deliver results? And Jack's focus alongside me is on making very high quality investment decisions and running a very robust investment process, but that is a skill set that, you know, he has clear expertise and experience of, I have received that money, but my focus is on how do we organise OSE efficiently to scale? Because I want to really challenge all of our stakeholders, our investors, our team to be much more ambitious around what we could do. But to do that means we need to scale the organisation far more efficiently and so that's where my experience comes in alongside and very complementary to Jack's.

[00:06:15] Susannah de Jager: That's really clear and actually, as you describe it, I'm inclined to agree with you. It's hard to envisage that somebody could focus on the day job. You said yourselves, you've only got 40 percent of the way through the portfolio, you've both been in situ for five months, I think it is now, you know, it's a big portfolio, it's a lot of work and so the idea you could do that and build a strategy and scale, it sounds like a really good call that they've been split out.

[00:06:39] Susannah de Jager: So in terms of building and scaling, why is that such a large objective of yours? How have you come to that conclusion? And what are the benefits both for your stakeholders, but also presumably for the university for that to happen?

[00:06:52] Ed Bussey: Yeah, so if I go back to the beginning and in fact, this came out of my own due diligence on OSE before coming in and I've come into this with my eyes wide open, as did Jack and we had a lot of conversations over the summer before we started in September. What's clear is we are not touching the sides of the container in terms of the scale of the opportunity and for all sorts of reasons the organisation has been, and I'm not saying this as a criticism, it's necessarily been a bit inward looking the last few years, but from conversations we've both had and certainly I've had across the university and in departments and within academics, there are a whole number of spin out opportunities that we haven't even looked at. It's not a numbers game, without compromising the quality of what we're trying to do, we could be doing a lot more and to do a lot more, we need to be really clear about how we work. So one of the things that folks on very early on, is to define what I call our operating model, how do we work? And to then think about that operating model and all the different stages and how do we do each one? How do we address each of those stages in a much more scalable way? Because I think there are many aspects of what OSE is doing to level of excellence, but that excellence and best practice isn't being run across the whole organisation necessarily in all areas in a really clear and consistent way and that's where, actually, if we want to go, you know, the opportunity is, you know, current plan, you know, roughly, let's just say we're worth a billion, one billion and three now, the current plan takes us to three billion. I think we need to be much more ambitious than that. I think we could be doing a hundred percent of that. We could be square brackets working on a path now, how do we get to seven or eight billion?

[00:08:40] Susannah de Jager: Yeah.

[00:08:41] Ed Bussey: But to do that, you know, this isn't about doubling the headcounts and doubling the number of the companies that we're investing in, but it is about doing what we do more efficiently and that's where this comes in. But to be more efficient, we need to really understand how do we work across all the different stages of the sequence of what OSE does. So I will try and walk you through this in the air.

[00:09:04] Susannah de Jager: The elevator pitch.

[00:09:06] Ed Bussey: Yeah.

[00:09:06] Ed Bussey: So the first thing is we need to maximise the number of high potential spin outs that we generate. So at the top of the funnel and there are a number of departments in the university where we have really amazing engagement. Some of our team members are in there regularly, at least once a week, coffees, walking the corridors, talking to the academics, there's a, you know, really sort of vibrant level of discussion and an idea generation, which is amazing. On the other end of the spectrum, there are some departments we have zero contact with at all, despite the fact we've been on the ground here, you know, we've got 55 people, we've been here for eight years. So we can see there are some opportunities and we need to think about how we better engage with those departments. So it can't be a cookie cutter approach. We need to think in some areas and do we need to offer a prize? In other areas it might be more effective to bring in some of the successful academics who work with us who can come back and showcase by example what's possible. But in all cases what's really important, again we might come on talk about this, is OSE needs to be a lighthouse of inspiration. We have a very privileged position here in Oxford and we should not take that for granted. We have a special relationship with the university, but I would never want an academic to come to us and nor would they off the base of the fact that we have an agreement with the university. I want people to come to us as the first place they call because they have an idea of a business that they would consider spinning out and they come to us because they can see the strength of our offering. So the first thing we need to do is we need to improve our engagement across the university with, at the department level. to increase the top of the pipeline. Now, that is necessarily going to mean we're going to say no to things. We can't back every single business. But I want to invest more at that upfront stage and arguably, we're going to take some resource from the top end of the business at the later stage and bring it back down to that early stage, what we call sourcing phase. The second phase on the operating model is then the venture building phase and what we need to do here is we need to accelerate the speed at which we build companies. Again, just being very candid for a very obvious good reasons, OSE's done a really good job actually of building businesses, but we arguably stay in the build mode for a bit too long and it's a really simple thing, we just need to have a clearer gate between the point at which the company is self standing and good to go and we can then let go and not sort of saying with a drift that we're sort of still building sort of X years in because once we've built a standalone company, the measure of success should be that maybe bar a seat on the board, we can step right back, job done. So I'll give you an example of that, rather than us doing the hiring for the companies all the way through the journey, we should be embedding people in the companies to do that hiring more effectively themselves. How do we equip the companies and the founding teams to build the company more efficiently and effectively themselves rather than us doing all the heavy lifting?

[00:12:06] Susannah de Jager: And I presume, sorry to interject, but you know, there will be culture that is specific to those companies too, and if you are too involved, you risk trying to make them homogenous or it by happening by accident, not even trying and that whatever is unique about that founder, might be a little bit diluted and that could actually have an impact on the probability of success in itself and yeah.

[00:12:28] Ed Bussey: Absolutely and there's going to be a phase right at the beginning, you know, we have one academic, we have some science and you know, and a legal framework of a company and some IP, but that's it. So in the early days, we're going to need to do that heavy lifting and helping build the team.

[00:12:41] Susannah de Jager: And that's what somebody would expect from a good investor, is help and guidance and advice, to a point.

[00:12:48] Ed Bussey: To a point and I think if we were to look at this point in tangible terms, what does it mean? It means that actually we incentivise the teams inside OSE that the success metric is the number of successful builds, yeah, that we can create in a year, rather than it's somewhat open ended. So that's the second way, we need to get that right. But I would say there's real excellence.

[00:13:11] Ed Bussey: I mean, one of the myths around OSE, of which there are a number, is that we are...

[00:13:17] Susannah de Jager: I've never heard any of them!

[00:13:18] Ed Bussey: Ok, sure, of them is that we're an investor, full stop. We are an investor, but that is a fraction of what we do. I set up my first business at Cambridge. There was no organisation like OSE and frankly, if I had seen an OSE, I would have bitten the arm off the organisation to do what we do, for free, to help our academics build their company. So this venture building phase, we find the fractional CFO, we help put the EMI share option plan in, we get the lab space, we find the chairman, sometimes we need to find the, I mean, it's a huge, we make sure they've got two bank accounts rather than one bank account with SVB, you know all these sorts of things. Yeah, there's a long list and that takes 18 to 36 months of heavy lifting. So we do that well, but we know there's more efficiency needed around it. The third phase is how do we help our companies scale? Obviously, there's some overlap with the venture building phase when we're thinking about scale then as well. But how do we manage that scale phase more efficiently? And so this is where we move into more of a portfolio management role and we need to think about how we manage a sort of growing portfolio of companies in a more traditional sort of VC sort of P manner where we've created the company and then we can step back. So I think there's some things we need to think about and work on there. The fourth phase might initially sound a bit outta place, but I think it's really important. We want our companies to impact the world's greatest challenges. So if we go right back to the beginning, we are looking for companies that have the potential to become billion pound businesses and solve the world's greatest challenges and frankly, that's why many of the team, if not everyone on the team comes into work and it's partly why I've taken this role. It's a really inspiring mission that we are explicit about internally and so on that journey, which sounds quite sort of operational from finding the spin outs and venture building them and then manage them in a scalable way, that's all great. But also we want to make sure we don't lose sight of the fact that, you know, from an ESG perspective, but also from a motivational point of view, we're also looking to create companies that have a positive impact on the world and we need to get that right to drive the fifth stage of the flywheel, which is we need to deliver returns for our shareholders. Obviously, we're an investment business, yes, and we're all coming into work to make a difference. But at the end of the day, we also have to deliver the best possible financial returns for our shareholders and this is the stage where, you know, Jack really comes into his own. He is responsible with my and Jim Wilkinson's support, the CFO, to maximise returns for our shareholders and the sixth and final stage of the flywheel, I've gone sort of round the clock, is if we get all of that right, then we help communicate the message that OSE is the partner of first choice for academics and for investors and other stakeholders that want to participate on this mission because if we get all of those things right, then we become a very compelling partner to invest in, we've become a really compelling partner to help grow your business and we become an exciting place to work and that is the operating model and my job as CEO is, well, having helped to define that is then now to build a strategy that then executes on all of those different six areas.

[00:16:50] Susannah de Jager: Thank you, that was very clear and I imagine normally you have an infographic that helps you with that.

[00:16:55] Ed Bussey: I'm trying to, yeah, paint in the air! But hopefully it came across!

[00:16:59] Susannah de Jager: Thank you. So at the end there you're talking about the partner of choice and you've obviously bought an enormous amount of money into Oxford university since inception in 2015, there's been a lot of businesses that come out and you know, you have already built a lot. There's a lot of brilliant stuff that's come out of OSE as an entity and yet, when you say partner of choice, you are alluding to the fact that there is perhaps a little bit of a sentiment among some, and I wouldn't say all by any stretch, that perhaps for some reasons, that hasn't been the case and you alluded, you know, or you mentioned outright, rather, some departments have been better interacted with than others and they have borne more fruit, inevitably, maybe a better specialist, maybe just personalities at play. But you also spoke earlier about your role as a founder, your empathy for the founders, the importance of being involved, but then stepping back and it is candidly one of the, you know, if we were to call them myths, but perhaps, you know, one could go further that I have heard about OSE is that there is a propensity to sometimes have a playbook, flip the founder out and the management team and clearly there's a few things in there, one is the investment cycle that you yourselves are to a degree answerable to as are all venture capital firms to a degree, but also there is a risk that a really great founder might say, well I don't know, they've got a bit of this reputation and so you've in part answered it, but I would sort of name it out front because it is there to be overcome, I think.

[00:18:34] Ed Bussey: Yeah, it's a really important point and look, I can relate to it on my own journey and you know, I think if I think back to when I brought the first VC money onto my third business, I'd been through the journey twice and I'd seen it work well with one founder and less well with another founder. So I'd seen some data points around this. Actually, I made a point with that VC on the third business of saying to them when they came in, look, if at any point you think I'm not the right CEO for this business, let's just sit down and have a conversation, because the reality is, in most cases, the founding CEO is not necessarily the same and best person to take it all the way through to exit and if you look at OSE's journey, we've been on our own sort of startup journey and you know, Dave Norwood, who I've had many conversations with in the run up to taking the role, you know, he needed a particular energy to, you know, to really get this off the ground and to knock some things together and so on, and to have real vision, whereas arguably today, the role needs more operational focus. It's about scale and detail, it's a different focus. So it's not a, there's no implied criticism in this. So I think almost unapologetically, I think as a responsible investor, when you're a custodian of other people's money and in our case, that includes people's pension money, for example, but lots of people's money, it's incumbent on us to make the right decisions for our companies and sometimes that does mean we have to make some hard decisions and I say, I've been on the receiving end of this, so I know what that's like and it's very difficult when you've taken your baby and you've put your life, soul, everything into it, it's a deep emotional attachment you have to the business that you've taken from nothing to something, it's very difficult to step aside, but it's really important that founders, me included, know when it's the right time to step aside. Now, having said all that, I think it's also incumbent on OSE and other investors, particularly those of us, you know, we are doing a very specific type of investment because we're investing right at the beginning before there is a business. I really believe in transparency internally and I have a sort of term called radical transparency, which I try to adopt. But just on this, it's really important we're transparent with our founders at the beginning and we say to them, look, we might know at that point, you know, you could be an amazing chief science officer or an amazing chief technology officer, but you know, candidly, we don't think you've got the right skill set to be the CEO and if we know that at the beginning, we need to be clear about that. Now it's a hard judgment and maybe we don't know. It might be we say, look, we're really happy to back you now, but we're going to need to review this in two years. So I think those questions need to be had in an open and transparent way and it's not a criticism because not everyone is cut out for every single role in the building of a business and people need to be highly self aware and open to feedback and guided to play to their strengths for the interests of the whole team and the whole business and by the way that includes OSE. So those are my thoughts on that, but it's a question that's come up very close to my heart, a number of times on my own journey.

[00:21:50] Susannah de Jager: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

[00:21:52] Susannah de Jager: One of the other kind of things that one has heard over the years is that because we're this number one leading university in Oxford and we've got all the great science that sometimes we have given the impression to other investors that might want to come in and bring capital to play here, sort of almost that we don't need them, which of course is never going to be anyone's intent and couldn't be further from the truth. You've just talked about scaling, clearly that would require more capital. But, you know, if those investors hopefully might possibly be listening, what would you say? And in this role, how do you view those investors coming in?

[00:22:26] Ed Bussey: I think the most important thing I can say on this, just to be really clear, is we are open for business, full stop and I can stop right there, but let me expand on why I'm saying that. I understand why there is a perception that OSE is in some areas perceived as a gatekeeper, maybe even as a blocker, to other investors coming into the ecosystem here. But I categorically can tell you it is not true today and Jim and I are on a mission to really reset the false narrative around this.

[00:23:01] Ed Bussey: But let's just go back because it hasn't come from nowhere. It's come from a time, I think, in the early days of OSE when, you know, it was for sure the key, biggest, only major player on the ground in this area in Oxford and it had an approach where it was looking to do a hundred percent of every single spin out that came out. That is not the case today and hasn't been for the last few years. I've asked my team because I've had this fed back to me a number of times in the first five months. The numbers speak for themselves. We've invested approaching a billion pounds in Oxford in the last eight years. We have now leveraged another billion on top, so two billion pounds that we've put into Oxford University spin outs, that other billion has come from north of 300 co-investors who we have brought into the ecosystem to invest alongside us. We had a deep tech event in London a couple of weeks ago where we wanted to showcase some of the really exciting companies in the deep tech portfolio. We had 140 investor attendees at that event and we're doing this because number one, it makes total economic sense for us to share the load of what we're trying to do. We cannot do this and do not want to do this on our own. We don't want to be sat owning 100 percent of every single company in our portfolio. We want to bring in smart investment capital to sit alongside us, to support us financially and support our companies financially. But also to validate the theses of our investments, many of the companies we're investing are doing things that have never been done before and so the more brains and smart capital we have alongside us, the better. So I say, I can see where it's come from, but we actively want more investors in the ecosystem here. The challenge we've got now, and I'm saying this in a, OSE has 55 people on the ground here, just numerically we've invested in more people, in more departments, we're sponsoring more courses, more PhDs, I mean, we're spending millions just in the ecosystem here and so we are very present and there will be some Investors who don't want to get on the 50 minute train from Paddington to Oxford, but frankly, they're missing out and from our point of view, we would love to see them. We'd love to have them here. But, I think we, you know, we should be confidently saying that we collectively, as in the university and OSE, OUI, we've built something really incredible in OSE. We believe we are the largest venture builder of spin outs outside the United States. That's something we should be really proud of and if you just look at the capital we brought in, it far outstrips anything else across Europe and so I say we should be really proud of that and we're saying that with a view to how do we use that success to be a magnet to bring in even more capital than we currently have and that's what I say we're on a mission to sort of course correct in terms of the narrative.

[00:26:06] Susannah de Jager: Okay, so I'm going to lay the final one out for you Ed, because you know, we're on a roll now, killing the myths. One of the other things that I have sometimes heard, and I'm sure you have, and to be honest, it's now sort of been brought to the fore by, you know, Irene Tracey being a co author of the spin out review and one of the things that was in there was equity stakes and have historically heard that, you know, the perception was that the equity stakes taken by Oxford and by extension by OSE in many cases was too large and that was having a dampening effect on other great investors that you just alluded to wanting to have alongside for all of the great signaling and you know what they can bring in their networks. So what would you say to that particular sort of perception?

[00:26:48] Ed Bussey: Well, I think the consensus of the review was that actually we've landed in exactly the right place in so far as the university has a 20 percent position in spin outs that include IP that has been somehow, some form funded by the university and again, historically, it was a bigger percentage and so you can see where it's come from, but I think everyone, no, well, it's not everybody, most people I'm talking to think that's, you know, bearing in mind the maturity of the ecosystem here, most people feel that's about the right balance. So the founders have 80 percent and the university, based off its ownership of the IP, lands at 20% and that model is, and that template has, is being followed by Northern Gritstone in Manchester, by Midlands Mineforge and others, I gather even in Australia, they're copying the same template. I feel relatively comfortable, and most of the people I'm talking to feel it's about right. Now, when we're maybe at the level of MIT and you know, this flywheel is just throwing off spin outs and you know, there's an enormous amount of money coming back into the University Endowment Fund and the College Endowment Fund, maybe we can take another look at it, but we're not there yet, we're not close. Now our ambition and my ambition with OSE is we get it to that sort of level, but that is not where we are right now. So I think over time we need to, we might need to review it again, but I think it's about right for where we are now.

[00:28:15] Susannah de Jager: Perfect, thank you.

[00:28:17] Susannah de Jager: So talking about MIT and Institutes of Technology, how do you think the Ellison Institute for Technology is going to impact Oxford and what's your view?

[00:28:27] Ed Bussey: Well, I mean, I think, it's an incredible stamp of approval and validation on the quality of the science that's here and I think that's just a, you know, a massive tick in the box for Oxford in the broadest sense and you know it's exciting, again it's just the sense that Larry Ellison has picked Oxford for this and is investing a significant amount of capital in Oxford to create something so exciting, I think just speaks to, and I'm saying this as a Cambridge graduate, speaks to what is actually really special about Oxford and why, when I look at just the mind blowing science that's coming out of the labs that we're seeing, that we're turning into companies that will change the world. I can see why he's chosen Oxford and I think it just reinforces the, power of the ecosystem and the brand that we have here, which is globally recognised. I mean, essentially, if you look at our cap table, a significant proportion of our investors come from outside the UK and the draw is the Oxford brand, the quality of the science and the quality of the companies that are coming out of the ecosystem off the back of that.

[00:29:37] Susannah de Jager: Yeah, really interesting and you spoke about your experience in government earlier. What are the interactions that you're having on that front at the moment in your role?

[00:29:48] Ed Bussey: So I guess there are a couple of themes. So I'm talking, I'm on different round tables, sort of up to a ministerial level, I was in 10 Downing Street a couple of months ago. I think there's a few themes to this and it's a dialogue that's work in progress. But one of the themes is that I truly believe that the university science ecosystems that we are building here in the UK are a national asset and I want to challenge the awareness of this because I think we're sat on, if I quote somebody who's taken a look at our portfolio, we're sat on their equivalent of Gulf Oil. There are very few countries that dominate, well we dominate the university league table and if you look at the science and the spin outs coming out, it is world class. So I don't think there is as widespread understanding, sort of more nationally, around how valuable this is as an asset to the whole country, so that's one thing. I can see that's understood at a senior level in government, but I think we could do more to really amplify how valuable this is to everybody.

[00:31:00] Susannah de Jager: Well, but it's only valuable if we keep it here.

[00:31:03] Ed Bussey: And that's my second point! And there are different schools of thought on this and I do understand at some point, you know, you need to follow the money and follow where the returns are. But my second challenge is, and I'm watching this sort of ringside seats. We, as in not just OSE, but others, are doing an incredible job taking the most advanced science on the planet, going through all the hard yards and pain of building a self standing company, raising considerable amounts of capital and then we catapult it out of the UK, to list somewhere on NASDAQ or somewhere else and look, that's in and of itself, that's not a bad thing and you get good valuations and so on, but some of our companies are critical to the national interest, they're strategically valuable to the UK and so again, I just want to just challenge, I'm not saying it's the wrong thing to do. I just want to challenge the, status quo because right now that is almost the default conveyor belt. We build the business, we invest in it and then we launch it off into another market and then when the big liquidity event happens, I know the listing or whatever, that capital, the flow of that capital, then cascades down somewhere else and what we need to then inspire and capitalise the next generation of entrepreneurs, which is why the US has been so successful, we need that to happen in Oxford, in Cambridge and in Manchester and Leeds and Sheffield, that's where we need to have it and so that we can start recycling that capital. So that's my second challenge, I think there's more around skills and so on, but I think those are the two big themes.

[00:32:43] Susannah de Jager: Yeah, no, it's really interesting and I've had, you know, in projects I've worked on discussions with government and you know, in particular focused on scale up capital that companies need and where there's a real drop off in domestic capital and it's an interesting question because domestic capital clearly keeps companies in the UK. But you've got international capital, but you're domestically based, so that can work too. It doesn't have to mutually exclusive.

[00:33:09] Ed Bussey: Yeah, absolutely.

[00:33:10] Susannah de Jager: But you know, actually one of our guests previously was Alderman Nicholas Lyons, who was the Lord Mayor that brought across the Mansion House Compact and very successfully getting defined contribution pension plans to commit to 5 percent in unlisted by 2030, which will be a huge amount of money. How do you see that playing into these problems? Are you looking to capture some of that money? Are you..?

[00:33:33] Ed Bussey: Absolutely and so by the way, when I say I just want to raise this, it's to be fair to the people I'm speaking in government. I'm preaching to the converted by the way, so this is not new news.

[00:33:45] Susannah de Jager: They're they're quite good at agreeing and maybe...

[00:33:47] Ed Bussey: I'm giving a live example of, the implications of this not being the case right now, because I'm saying we're watching this live with some really exciting, globally unique companies looking at moving, their headquarters out of the UK to other countries.

[00:34:05] Susannah de Jager: So the momentum is not in the right direction.

[00:34:06] Ed Bussey: It's not in the right direction. So I think the government understands this. I think the mansion house compact is really, it's really encouraging, you know, in our world, five years is a long time. Okay, so I think if we can work, we collectively can work this through, it'd be, it would be a good, there's clearly a significant pool of capital and yes, we have conversations running as well with pension funds and hopefully we can fast track some of that process. But this process needs to work because it's a critical missing piece right now and we have, the capital is sat there and if we can unlock it in the way that it, what we're talking about that could solve some of these issues, it could be a game changer. So there's a bit of me that's really excited about it, but as I say, five, six years is a long wait. So I'm really hoping that, you know, we'll get some movement on that within that timeframe rather than we have to wait till 2030 to see the first funds flowing.

[00:35:05] Susannah de Jager: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. It's four trillion nearly, that we've got in pension capital and less than one percent invested and so I think the government are slightly hamstrung by the financial circumstance but you know, tax breaks, UK ISAs, encouraging our own pension funds to invest, all these seem like, you know, low hanging fruit. So that's exciting, hopefully.

[00:35:28] Susannah de Jager: Well, listen, thank you so much, Ed. You've been really candid and open, and I hope you don't mind me sort of throwing you the sacred cows to kill, as it were. Is there anything else that you kind of particularly wanted to have as a parting thought for anyone listening?

[00:35:43] Ed Bussey: First of all, thanks to you for giving me the opportunity to share my thoughts. My approach is always to be very candid, I think that's really the only way, not everyone's going to agree. But I guess probably all I would say is, I genuinely believe that we have something quite remarkable here. I want to say we have, what we have is not just OSE, we have an ecosystem with the most incredible science, with some really incredible talent and the capital and a brand. We have all the ingredients to build something amazing and I'm determined to make that happen and I guess my ask of people in the ecosystem is please help, please help us, because the more of us that can get behind this endeavor, broader than building OSE, but build the endeavor of building a really exciting ecosystem around this, the better. That's probably one thing and the second thing is, you know, inevitably when you're trying to do something new, you're going to misstep and there's going to be some trip ups along the way and in the same way I am candid in what I say, I'm also very open and approachable on feedback and I really encourage anyone who, if there are any missteps on our part or issues that, you know, people just call me. Come and tell me. I'm interested to understand where can we do better? What could we do differently? I am just interested in building something incredible and the more I can learn from where we're getting things wrong, as well as things right, the more likely we can be successful.

[00:37:22] Susannah de Jager: Thank you, I'm sure that will be well received and thank you so much for your time and your candor Thanks for listening to this episode of Oxford+ presented by me, Susannah de Jager. If you want to stay up to date with all things Oxford+, please visit our website OxfordPlus.co.uk and sign up to our newsletter so you never miss an update.

[00:37:41] Susannah de Jager: Oxford+ was made in partnership with Mishcon de Reya and is produced and edited by Story Ninety-Four.

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