Tucked inside one of the elegant limestone facades of Bath, England, just metres from the ancient Roman ruins, is a marvel that few tourists visit: part of the world’s No. 1 university incubator.

The University of Bath Innovation Centre occupies an unremarkable building on the banks of the Avon River. It’s a crowded, bustling space that would interest neither architects nor archeologists. What’s magnificent about it is the role it plays in the startup ecosystem in Southwest England.

Bath’s Innovation Centre is a founding member of SETsquared, a group of five university incubators that have banded together to share resources, mentoring and promotion for the companies in their network. This collaboration is the main reason SETsquared was ranked the No. 1 university business incubator in the world by UBI Global.

“We all have our own incubators, so at any given time SETsquared has access to 250 startups,” said Ali Hadavizadeh, deputy head of enterprise at the Bath facility. “So we are able to showcase a much broader spectrum of businesses than just what we have in Bath.”

The Bath incubator would be an impressive outfit on its own. It accepts startups developed at the university and from the broader community, and never invests directly in these companies. About half of the 51 companies now enrolled in the incubator originated at University of Bath.

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Fifteen years ago, it partnered with the universities of Exeter, Surrey, Southampton, and Bristol to form SETsquared, which has since cultivated a range of innovation in the southwest corner of England. They had incubated 1,000 companies and created 9,000 jobs as of 2015.

Hadavizadeh said each university in the group has its own particular strength. Bath is strong in mechanical engineering, for example, and Bristol’s forte is medicine. That means that a company from any catchment area can find expertise and facilities in their sector at a partner university if they are not available locally.

He said the Incubator Centre hosts pitching competitions to engage with students at an early stage, and then nurtures the companies as they grow. Though the centre does not invest in the companies, entrepreneurs are eligible for academic bursaries, which can support them as they grow the business.

And SETsquared works to get their companies investment from independent investors. Each year, it takes the best companies to London for a day of pitching to investors. Only 20-25 companies pitch at a given event, which means the quality of company is good and many find meaningful funding. In 2015, the five SETsquared members raised more than £60 million (C$96 million at current exchange rates), with the University of Bath accounting for about one-third of the total.

One entrepreneur who has benefited from the Innovation Centre is Tom Minor, who three years ago launched DoodleMaths, whose gamified EdTech product uses algorithms to determine a student’s strengths and weaknesses in math and tailors curriculum accordingly.

“We started to get good traction in the App store, and the support we received here really helped,” said Minor. “In the last three years, we’ve raised £750,000.”

Hadavizadeh said these are the types of companies that the Innovation Centre is looking for — those with groundbreaking innovation that can get to the marketplace.

“We’re very, very particular about who we engage with — our selection criteria are very tough,” said Hadavizadeh. “We want those startups that have a chance to have an impact, to create jobs and wealth.”