A rich environment

Universities have confidence baked in, says spinout investor and entrepreneur Alastair Kilgour.

Words: Frances Hedges

What do all entrepreneurs have in common? For Alastair Kilgour (MSc Management Science 1981), the answer is confidence. “For some people, it’s innate, while others learn it – but either way, it’s important for success,” says Kilgour, who co-founded the investment company Parkwalk Advisors in 2009. “For me, self-belief came from being at Imperial. What I gained during my degree gave me the edge in the workplace.”

Recently named the winner of Imperial’s Alumni Entrepreneur Award 2025, Kilgour’s first degree was in biochemistry, but after a year in industry he realised it was not for him.

And so he came to Imperial, in his words, “to pivot”; the Management Science postgraduate qualification offered a fast track to a career in business. “Professor Sam Eilon, who ran the course, had good links into the finance sector, so I thought it would be a great way to get onto a big company’s trainee scheme,” he recalls.

"The right place at the right time"

And so it proved: in 1981, Kilgour was offered a position at a City stockbroker, where, against a backdrop of economic growth in the wake of the 1970s recession, he found himself “in the right place at the right time”. The technological know-how he brought from Imperial – “I’d taken a computer science module, which was very unusual in those days” – combined with his scientific nous, made him a valuable resource, and his progression was rapid. Opportunities at rival brokers followed, leading eventually to his role as Head of European Capital Markets at Lazard.

It was the financial crisis of 2008 that prompted Kilgour, in partnership with his former Lazard colleague Moray Wright, to set up a new business. Having lived through a previous crash, the pair knew the government would be keen to incentivise economic activity, and they decided to take advantage of this. “I felt there needed to be a way for companies with lots of intangible assets, such as in tech or pharmaceuticals, to borrow money against their potential sales growth,” explains Kilgour. To fill the gaps in his knowledge, he returned to Imperial, this time enrolling himself in a course on valuing intellectual property. “That experience confirmed to me that this was an area worth investing in.”

"Universities are a pool for talent"

Their focus was on university spinouts – companies set up to harness the potential benefits of academic research. “Universities are a pool for creativity and talent,” says Kilgour, “but it can be challenging to value the output of their research departments. My goal was to establish a new UK asset class that would, over time, create its own track record and have a legacy beyond my involvement.”

Parkwalk Advisors now supports spinouts from top academic institutions to the tune of £50 million a year, using money invested under the government’s Enterprise Investment Scheme. Imperial is, he says, particularly well-placed to attract funding, because its diverse student and academic body means that a global outlook goes hand in hand with technological innovation, and also because of its strong emphasis on entrepreneurialism.

“The best, most disruptive ideas coming out of universities aren’t just from one professor or team – they’re the result of multidisciplinary thinking,” he points out. “And Imperial is great at encouraging that.” Alumni can now personally invest in the fruits of such thinking, thanks to the Imperial College Enterprise Funds, a seed investment scheme managed by Parkwalk Advisors.

As an entrepreneur enabling the next generation of creative thinkers, Kilgour is proud to be passing the torch. “Any business starts with an idea, but quite quickly you realise the challenges of getting there,” he says. “I’m happy to do all I can to help people down that road.”

Find out more at parkwalkadvisors.com