# Provenance — fig1-investment-divergence

**Chart type:** two stacked **small-multiple rows** — one per funding stage, stage-ordered top→bottom (top = pre-seed/seed, the earliest funnel stage; bottom = early-stage VC / Series A–B), **each row on its own zero-based per-row scale**, each plotting the **full 2019–2024 annual series**.

**Correction log (2026-07-07 — baseline consistency).** A reader challenged the earlier version of this figure: it anchored pre-seed/seed to 2019 (a pre-pandemic trough) but anchored the Series A row to its **2021 pandemic peak** (£1.1bn), then annotated "more than halved" to 2024. Using different reference years for the two series overstated the contrast — the seed rise was measured from a low year, the Series A fall from a high one. The critique is correct. This figure was rebuilt to plot the **full 2019–2024 series for both stages on a matched timeline**, so the 2021 Covid-era spike is now *visible within the line* rather than used as the Series A baseline. On a like-for-like 2019 basis: pre-seed/seed **+95%** (£99m → £193m); early-stage VC **−18%** (£553m → £456m). The direction the piece argues still holds — early-stage VC is genuinely below its 2019 level and flat since 2023 — but the magnitude is now honest. The report's own **Figure 28** indexes every stage to 2019 = 100, so the matched-baseline framing is also the source's preferred one.

**Why this, not that.** The story this figure exists to tell is **direction per stage** — the seed layer rose, the Series A bridge fell back below where it started — not a magnitude comparison between the two stages. Two stacked small-multiple rows put each stage in its own panel, stage-ordered (earlier stage on top), so each row shows its own trend cleanly and the two shapes read at a glance. A shared £-axis would bury the seed row's near-doubling (small in absolute £) beneath the Series A row. The single ember accent is on the early-stage VC row — the piece's worry.

**The per-row-scale trade (load-bearing honesty note):** small multiples normally share a scale. Here they deliberately do **not** — each panel is zero-based on its own range (seed 0–£200m; early-stage VC 0–£1,200m) so each *direction* is legible and neither slope is exaggerated (both panels zero-based → lie factor ~1.0). The cost of per-row scaling is that it hides cross-stage magnitude — early-stage VC is far larger in absolute £ than seed. That magnitude is preserved by **labelling the key £ values directly** (£99m, £193m, £553m, £1.1bn, £456m). The subtitle and footer state "each panel on its own scale" so the reader is told, not tricked.

**Series-label honesty:** the on-figure lower-series label reads **"Early-stage VC · Series A–B · the bridge"**. Per PitchBook / the UCI report, **"early-stage VC = Series A to Series B rounds raised within 5 years of foundation."** The "Series A" shorthand used in the essay body and headline is this series; the "bridge" metaphor lives in the title/essay, not on a data label.

**Honesty notes:**
- All values are constant 2024 prices (per Figure 27), read directly from the Figure 27 stacked-bar chart (report p.71).
- **Both series are now plotted at every year 2019–2024** — no interpolation, every point is a source-stated Figure 27 value. The 2021 point (£1.1bn early-stage VC) is shown as the plotted peak it is, with an on-figure "Covid-era spike" label, not used as a reference baseline.
- The seed 2019 figure is **£99m** (Figure 27 plotted value; the report prose rounds this to "around £100m"). The +95% derivation ((193−99)/99) uses the exact plotted value.
- A dashed **2019-level reference line** runs across the early-stage VC panel so the reader sees the 2024 point sitting below its 2019 origin; the right-clear-space annotation reads "back below 2019 · −18% vs 2019".
- **Later-stage VC** (£704m 2019 → £2,183m 2024, roughly tripled) is called out in the on-figure footer because it *sharpens* the argument — capital did not broadly retreat; the squeeze is specific to the Series A bridge. It is named, not plotted, to keep the two-panel divergence legible. Total VC (£1.4bn 2019 → £2.8bn 2024) remains essay context.

**Data table (Figure 27, investment into UK university spinouts, constant 2024 prices, £m):**

| id | series | row | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | plotted on-figure | source | anchor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| seed | pre-seed/seed | 1 | 99 | 122 | 162 | 169 | 146 | 193 | line + £99m, £193m labels | UCI Fig 27 | report p.71 |
| earlyVC | early-stage VC (Series A–B) | 2 | 553 | 594 | 1107 | 859 | 454 | 456 | line + £553m, £1.1bn, £456m labels + 2019 dashed ref | UCI Fig 27 | report p.71 |
| laterVC | later-stage VC | — | 704 | 863 | 2109 | 1875 | 1250 | 2183 | footer callout only (not plotted) | UCI Fig 27 | report p.71 |
| totalVC | total VC | — | 1400 | 1600 | 3400 | 2900 | 1800 | 2800 | essay context (not on figure) | UCI Fig 27 | report p.71 |

Source quotes (report §6.1.1, p.70): "pre-seed/seed investments growing from around £100 million in 2019 to £193 million in 2024"; "the amount of early stage VC investments, following the pandemic-era jump in 2021 has now fallen below the levels seen in 2019 and 2020, and has remained flat during 2023 and 2024 at just over £450 million"; "later stage VC investments increasing from around £700 million in 2019 to £2.2 billion in 2024". The stage-by-year values above are read from the Figure 27 stacked bars (p.71).

**Source:** UCI Policy Evidence Unit, "Powering Ideas to Innovation: The significance, structure and dynamics of the UK university spinout ecosystem" (Tomas Coates Ulrichsen & Joscelyn Miller, 10 June 2025), Figure 27 — analysis of the UCI spinout dataset (data behind HESA's Spinout Register + PitchBook). Repository: https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/items/4b112cc8-ae83-486b-a335-f24170fa0fd0 · News page: https://www.ifm.eng.cam.ac.uk/research/uci-policy-unit/uci-news/spinout-register-analytical-report/

**Encoding decisions:** ink ground `#0A1428`; bone `#F4F1EA` for the seed (top, rising) row; exactly one ember `#E85D2F` on the early-stage VC (bottom) row + its dashed 2019-level reference rule; muted `#5A6678` for year captions, subtitle, secondary annotation, and footer. Inter for the title / row labels / prose annotations, JetBrains Mono for value labels and year captions. Left-aligned row labels; value labels at key points only (endpoints + 2021 peak), with a full six-year year axis under each panel. Direct-labelled throughout — no legend. Both rows zero-based (no truncation); viewBox 936×604. The x-axis is a shared 2019–2024 time axis across both rows; each row's direction annotation sits in the right clear space.

**Kill-list overrides:** none. (Per-row-scaled small multiples are a keep-list pattern; the departure from the usual *shared*-scale rule is deliberate and disclosed above and on-figure.)

**Checklist (tufte/checklist.md, 12-item):** PASS. Verified by headless-Chromium render on the ink panel + read-back (squint test): the two shapes (seed rising, early-stage VC spiking then falling below its 2019 origin) read in one glance; stage order correct; one ember accent; key £ values directly labelled; no label collisions (iterated render passes to clear the seed row label / £99m proximity, the "Covid-era spike" tag, and the footer width); zero-based non-exaggerating scales; no chartjunk. role="img" + aria-label present and describes both panels and the full series.

**Generator:** hand-authored flat inline SVG (matches the shipped figure convention in this repo). Geometry: seed row values 0–200 mapped over y 115.95–280 (value→pixel); early-stage VC row values 0–1200 mapped over y 375.5–560; six x-positions 220…700 at 96px spacing. No separate generator script.