Neil Woodford backs US tech scene with £15 million bet

Neil Woodford, one of Britain’s best-known fund managers, on Friday ploughed more cash into university labs incubator Allied Minds in a bid to capitalise on America’s booming biotech scene.

London-listed investor Allied said it had raised about £64 million in an equity placing via Credit Suisse Securities and Numis.

Of that, £15 million was put in by Woodford Investment Management.

It means more firepower for the Boston-based FTSE 250 firm to take advantage of its access to “hundreds of university and federal labs” across the US.

Allied Minds is behind about 20 businesses, from medical firm Precision Biopsy, to cyber-security specialist Percipient Networks.

Subsidiary HawkEye 360 recently raised $11 million (£8.7 million) to help send small satellites into low-earth orbit to track radio frequencies.

New York hedge fund Kerrisdale Capital — dubbed the most “self-promotin’-est fund in the land” — last year launched an attack on Allied’s valuation, calling it “ludicrous”, and sending its shares plunging.