Northern Gritstone CEO Duncan Johnson says the UK should stop treating acquisitions by US companies as a failure. The investor, which backs university spinouts in the North of England, argues that an exit to a US acquirer is evidence that a company has built something worth buying.
Johnson, who regularly travels to universities in Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Sheffield, says the focus should be on creating companies that can scale. A sale to a US buyer can be a success for founders, universities and the wider ecosystem, even if the company ends up with foreign ownership.
The comments push back against the idea that a UK spinout must stay independent or list at home to count as a win. For Northern Gritstone, the value created by a successful exit matters more than the nationality of the acquirer.