University spin-off companies and graduate start-ups had a larger turnover and employed more people in the past academic year despite slower economic growth.

Figures for 2014-15 from the annual show that the combined turnover of all spin-offs with some university ownership topped £1 billion, rising about £130 million since 2013-14.

They employed 12,480 people, a gain of more than 1,000 over the previous year.

Meanwhile the turnover of graduate start-ups increased from £475 million to nearly £650 million. They employed close to 21,000 people, up from about 18,500 the previous year.

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The data show that graduate start-ups are much more labour-intensive – overall they employ more people than spin-offs with some university ownership, but they have a much lower combined turnover.

The results also show that graduate start-ups seem to be getting far more external investment. In 2013-14, spin-off companies received the vast bulk of investment, while graduate-founded companies received just £74 million.

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But in the past academic year graduate start-ups received more than £300 million of investment.

Growth in overall employment, turnover and investment comes despite the fact that GDP growth in the UK was slightly more sluggish in 2014-15 than it was in 2013-14.

However, there was one notable downward trend from the survey: the number of new graduate start-ups fell from 4,581 to 4,160.

Universities also made marginally more money from “business and community interactions”, such as publicly funded collaborative research, contract work, consultancy and training courses.

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In February, a major survey showed that fewer academics had commercialised their research in 2012-15 compared with 2005-08, with the recession, pressures of the 2014 research excellence framework and bureaucracy blamed for the drop.

david.matthews@tesglobal.com