AS LYVA LABS APPROACHES ITS THIRD BIRTHDAY, WHAT PROGRESS ARE WE MAKING TOWARDS SUPPORTING INNOVATORS IN LIVERPOOL CITY REGION?

A hive of innovation, Liverpool City Region (LCR) has always been home to organisations powered by research and development to deliver scientific and technological firsts through inspirational partnerships.

LYVA Labs is now a key player in this landscape. Established with £10.5m from Liverpool City Region Combined Authority we drive innovation-led growth and highquality jobs, supporting the LCR aim for 5% of GVA to be invested in R&D by 2030.

How are we achieving that? Through investment into start-ups in key growth sectors, supporting established businesses to invest in new R&D, and enabling collaborative innovation across the region to drive economic growth.

We have directly invested over £1M in eight health and life science start-ups. Recent examples include £125K into Spotlight Pathology, to develop AI tools for supporting blood cancer diagnoses, and £50K into Wirral-based Tectores Ltd, whose patented technology, PelliTec®, reduces diabetic foot ulcers, to prevent lower limb amputations. But the bigger picture is we have managed to leverage a total of £2.6m in grant funding into these eight start-ups, over £17m of government funding into new programmes for priority sectors like advanced manufacturing, and nearly £6m in third-party equity investment for SMEs we have supported. That is a total economic contribution of £25m so far.

Our own diverse team has doubled to 15 staff over the past 18 months and the companies we have supported, including six completely new to the region, have created more than 25 new high-quality jobs.

LYVA Labs’ unique and responsive offers help businesses overcome barriers to innovation for SMEs and larger, established organisations, to ignite innovation in R&D, product development, and the commercialisation journey.

Our Consultancy Service supports businesses with a £15k R&D partnership grant. More than a dozen local businesses have received funding and consultancy innovation workshops to help them embed innovative practices. These R&D collaborations span knowledge partners at local universities and open innovation facilities like Materials Innovation Factory or specialist design engineering firms such as Liverpool-based Hooper Quinn.

One such project has seen us help Knowsleybased Bomac Electric to secure a £96K grant from Innovate UK. Bomac Electric designs and manufactures heating elements and products; the investment helped the company build a unique product and sensor system for waste oil. LYVA Labs’ Advanced Manufacturing Innovation Network connected Bomac Electric to local product design specialists Defproc Engineering.

For earlier-stage businesses, our Deep Tech Incubator has enabled LYVA Labs to invest £130,000 in four companies: Bundant, Leftfield Football Consulting, Heatio, and StruckLoc, leveraging £340,000 in grant funding, and £1.9m in co-investment. A further six investments in our second cohort will be announced soon.

Over three quarters of our investments and grants leveraged have gone to founders and CEOs from underrepresented groups and our strong conviction is helping diverse founders is essential to building an inclusive innovation ecosystem

LYVA Labs also supports the LCR innovation ecosystem - building on the success of consortia and industry collaborations like iiCON, the Materials Innovation Factory, and the Hartree National Centre for Digital Innovation. LYVA Labs identifies opportunities for innovative collaborations to attract private and public investment, connecting people, organisations, skills, and resources, to create consortia and clusters. We want to secure investment into LCR to build the capacity and capability to attract the industry and private sector investment that will make the region a leading destination for innovation.

If LYVA Labs can help your innovative business, or you could play a role in our consortia and programmes, please get in touch at www.lyvalabs.com

Our own diverse team has doubled to 15 staff over the past 18 months and the companies we have supported, including six completely new to the region, have created more than 25 new high-quality jobs.