Cambridge Spinouts Gain New York Soft-Landing Hub
Five Cambridge Enterprise portfolio companies join the inaugural New York Leap, the initiative's first international base after London.
Updated on Nov. 5, 2026 in Startups
Cambridge Enterprise launched its first international Leap in New York in collaboration with the Janus Property Company, with five of its portfolio companies joining the inaugural cohort. The New York Leap is a temporary landing hub for portfolio companies, founders and technology ventures, and is currently operating rather than a product or proposal.
Why it matters
The launch extends the Cambridge Enterprise Leaps model beyond its London debut, positioning New York as a base for ventures seeking to scale internationally. The collaboration is designed to connect Cambridge-linked companies with New York's research institutions, capital markets and commercial partners.
The Leap is a hub-based soft-landing arrangement rather than a funding or product mechanism. The cohort includes five companies working across medical imaging measurement, AI treatment planning, gene therapy, cellular drug delivery and photonics.
The players
Cambridge Enterprise
The University of Cambridge's commercialisation arm, which runs the Leaps initiative and supports spinouts across biotech, photonics and AI.
Janus Property Company
The property firm that partnered with Cambridge Enterprise to host the New York Leap within its Innovation Triangle-West Harlem ecosystem.
Aila Biotech
A University of Cambridge spinout building a gene therapy platform aimed at neuroinflammation.
Wave Photonics
A photonics company developing integrated light-based technology for datacom, quantum and sensing applications.
The details
The New York Leap sits within Innovation Triangle-West Harlem (ITWH), a district where it draws on the Janus Property Company's ecosystem and partnerships with Harlem Biospace, Gotham Foundry, Columbia School of Engineering, Columbia Business School, the New York Structural Biology Centre, Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and CUNY Advanced Science Research Centre. The cohort includes Verinnogen, which measures tumour size and volume more precisely; Streamtrix, which builds AI software for glioblastoma treatment planning; Aila Biotech, a University of Cambridge spinout developing gene therapy for neuroinflammation; Senesys.Bio, which delivers therapeutic agents to senescent cells, meaning cells that have stopped dividing; and Wave Photonics, which develops photonic integrated technology, light-based circuits, for datacom, quantum and sensing markets.
Timeline
The New York Leap launch was announced in an article published on 5 November 2026.
The Tech Race
The New York Leap follows the London Leap as the Cambridge Enterprise Leaps initiative's first international expansion. Placing a university-linked soft-landing hub in New York positions Cambridge spinouts alongside the city's research and capital-market ecosystem.
Founders and researchers linked to Cambridge can now access a temporary New York base with access to partners and capital markets, though the source does not state how long the hub will run or how companies are selected. Timelines for outcomes or follow-on programmes were not announced.
The takeaway
Watch whether the New York Leap produces measurable outcomes such as follow-on funding or partnerships for its five inaugural companies. A comparable update on the London cohort would show whether the model travels well across markets.
Further reading
For more on how university spinouts reach new markets, see our Startups coverage.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Cambridge Enterprise.
