Oxfordshire has set out a 10-year plan to create 20 unicorn companies, attract more than £1bn a year in venture and growth investment and generate 30,000 net new innovation-linked jobs by 2035.
The targets are set out in the Equinox 2035 Strategy, launched at the House of Commons yesterday by Equinox, an Oxfordshire-wide partnership of businesses, universities, investors, government and communities. The University of Oxford provides its secretariat.
The strategy also aims to draw investment from 10 Tier 1 US venture capital funds and 10 UK pension funds, establish six global corporates with a permanent presence in the county and rank Oxfordshire among the world’s top three innovation-intensive clusters per capita.
The event, hosted by Oxford East MP Anneliese Dodds, heard from Professor Irene Tracey, vice-chancellor of the University of Oxford and chair of the Equinox Council; Dr Olga Kozlova, the university’s director of innovation and engagement and chief executive of Equinox; and Peter Leek, chief scientific officer at Oxford Quantum Circuits.
Spinout investment
According to Equinox, Oxfordshire already has about 3,000 high-tech businesses employing some 30,000 people, alongside science and innovation assets including Harwell and the UK’s first AI Growth Zone at Culham. Moderna, BMW Group and the Ellison Institute for Technology are among the companies that have invested in the county.
Oxford University Innovation, the university’s innovation partner, has supported the creation of more than 350 companies, which have collectively attracted more than £8bn in investment since 2011, the partnership said. It added that Oxford spinouts raised €908m in the first half of 2026, more than the €864m raised across Germany’s entire university ecosystem and 20 per cent of all spinout investment in Europe.
The launch follows analysis from Public First and the Oxford-Cambridge Supercluster Board on the research intensity and spinout performance of the Oxford-Cambridge Growth Corridor. Oxford, Cambridge and London together took two-thirds of the venture capital invested in UK spinouts founded between 2013 and 2024, according to a review published by UK Research and Innovation in February.
Professor Tracey said: “Oxfordshire is a national asset with global reach. Our challenge is not whether we can innovate – we have demonstrated that decisively.”
Inward Investment Unit
Among its actions is a regional Inward Investment Unit, intended to give investors, corporates and developers a single front door to opportunities across Oxfordshire’s science parks, universities and innovation assets. The strategy also includes plans to strengthen access to capital and investment readiness for high-growth companies, develop employer-led skills pathways into innovation sectors and create a shared regional data platform for investment, company growth and skills planning.
More than 100 regional organisations have signed the Equinox Charter and more than 200 people have taken part in its workshops and events, the partnership said.
Dr Kozlova said: “Over the past two years, Equinox has brought together people and organisations from across Oxfordshire to understand what our ecosystem needs. We are now moving from engagement to delivery – making Oxfordshire easier to access and navigate, helping more businesses grow here and connecting more people with the jobs, skills and opportunities that growth creates.”
Ms Dodds said: “Thirty thousand new jobs would represent a huge opportunity for Oxfordshire, but only if people across our communities can see a route into them. That means investing in skills and apprenticeships, creating good jobs and making sure that young people growing up here can see a future for themselves in Oxfordshire’s innovation economy.”
Ed Bussey, chief executive of Oxford Science Enterprises (OSE), said: “Twenty unicorns by 2035 is absolutely achievable, and it’s right that Equinox is setting itself such a bold and ambitious target. For its part, OSE is now building one new potential billion-pound company every single month; we’ve seen three unicorn outcomes in the last 12 months.”
He added: “The challenge is making sure that companies with genuine global potential can access the capital they need not just to start, but to scale, and that they can do that from here rather than having to look elsewhere as they grow.”
University leaders and investors in Cambridge raised a similar point last year, warning that the UK lacks the follow-on capital at scale needed to turn spinouts into global companies.
