Midland-based venture capital firm Midven is to partner two organisations to help finance and support high-growth companies.
The Rainbow Seed Fund (RSF), managed by Midven which is based in Birmingham and Nottingham, will work with the Royal Academy of Engineering's Enterprise Hub and the ERA Foundation.
Chairman of the fund's advisory board, Ian Taylor, said the partnerships reflected the fund's increasing reach and influence in investing capital into early stage ventures emerging from the UK's high-quality scientific research.
RSF is a £24 million early stage venture capital fund dedicated to kick-starting promising UK tech companies.
Independently managed by Midven, it focuses on technologies developed at some of the UK's largest publicly-funded research facilities and at the campuses they support.
The fund will work with the Royal Academy of Engineering's Enterprise Hub and the ERA Foundation to provide support and investment capital for some of the UK's most ground-breaking and innovative concerns.
Mr Taylor added that the fund's "unique and adaptable structure" played a key role in ensuring the new partnerships went ahead.
The Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Hub has been created to bring about a step change in the success of UK-based entrepreneurial technology businesses, harnessing the expertise and insight of Academy Fellows.
The ERA Foundation supports activities that help bridge the gap between research and commercialisation in engineering.
Mr Taylor said: "Investors play a key role in the success of new engineering and technology companies, and these partnerships will provide a collaboration that brings not just capital, but the real world business experience early stage companies so often need."
