October 2016 may prove to be a seminal month in the history of the Cambridge UK business, science & technology cluster.

It wasn’t just the record-breaking surge of deals that promises so much for the sustainable health of the hotspot but mega-billion dollar plans to underpin technology here in the long-term future.

The baseline figure for deals done in the innovation heartland tells only part of the story; October deals were valued at a tad over $16.9 billion – but on top of that you need to broker in the following triple whammy:-

1 – ARM’s new owner SoftBank and Saudi partners unveiled a new $100bn fund to be spent on technology – principally IoT – ventures which Cambridge-based ARM is at the heart of

2 – A new Cambridge to Norwich Tech Corridor was launched promising to generate another $700m for the local economy

3 – Business Weekly understands a new Chinese fund running into mega-millions is set to target Cambridge life science investments

It’s exactly the underpinning the cluster needs to future-proof its IP power and trade prospects against the threat of a dual Brexit-President Trump protectionist policy backlash over the coming months.

The Cambridge cluster October deals haul hoisted the accumulative value of transactions in the 43 months of Business Weekly’s Cambridge Deals Digest to $267.7bn – setting the monthly average at a new record $6.225bn.

A $15 bn deal with key customer Airbus was unveiled that will hand the Cambridge operations of Hexcel Corporation a fresh sales bonanza, underpinning new jobs and further justifying expansion at the company’s Duxford innovation hub – the Wall Street-quoted company’s European research nervecentre.

Once again, the muscle of the local life sciences community proved attractive to global pharma partners.

Crescendo Biologics teed up a potential $790m milestone bonanza via a collaboration with Japanese pharma giant Takeda.

The companies unveiled a multi-target collaboration and licence agreement for the discovery, development and commercialisation of Humabody®-based therapeutics for cancer indications with a high unmet medical need.

Gene editing world leader Horizon Discovery laid the foundations for a multimillion dollar haul from molecular screening work steered from a scaled-up Cambridge power base.

It also secured a deal worth at least £500k with an unnamed commercial partner for access to its bioproduction cell lines. The subscription deal is a first of a kind for Horizon and should stack up to considerably more than the original licence fee.

Research from the Gurdon Institute in Cambridge was licensed to European oncology business Carrick Therapeutics which raised $95 million from backers including Cambridge Innovation Capital.

Hi-tech sector companies chipped in significantly. Heavyweight Cambridge and global investors backed debugging software business Undo to grab a significant slice of a $312bn-plus international market after pitching $3.3m into a series A funding round.

The Series A was led by Cambridge Innovation Capital and investors included Rockspring, Martlet, Sir Peter Michael (founder of Quantel, Classic FM and California’s Peter Michael Winery), the Cambridge Angels group and Jaan Tallinn (a founder of Skype and Kazaa).

A blockbusting new $100 billion fund with Japanese and Saudi backing promises a long-term payback for ARM Holdings as it builds a world lead in the Internet of Things arena.

ARM’s new Japanese parent, SoftBank, announced it was set to team up with Saudi sovereign wealth vehicle Public Investment Fund (PIF) to launch an investment war chest focusing exclusively on the technology sector.

Sources close to SoftBank believed a sizeable chunk of the investment could be injected into synergistic plays around ARM’s IoT ecosystem following the Japanese company’s $31bn acquisition of the superchip architect this summer.

Avery Dennison, the $6bn turnover California packaging and location tech giant, invested in an £18 million funding round for Cambridge flexible electronics business PragmatIC.

Avery Dennison is a Fortune 500 company headquartered in Pasadena with leading global positions in labelling and packaging materials as well as radio frequency identification (RFID).

The US company joined existing shareholders Cambridge Innovation Capital and ARM in the round.

Cambridge and Sandy property group Kier completed the disposal of Mouchel Consulting to WSP Global Inc. for $93m cash. Other property deals worth in excess of $46m were transacted in the region.

And one to watch – we reported that Chinese company Hytera Communications Corporation was in preliminary talks to acquire Sepura, the Cambridge digital communications specialist.

Hytera later highlighted a number of potential obstacles to any deal – which would be all cash – but at the time of writing were still talking. We reckon any deal will be valued at around $100m, which is relatively cheap given Sepura’s international reputation and contacts. Even if Hytera gets cold feet, Sepura is piquing the interest of other potential international buyers, we have been reliably informed.