Startup funding touches new records amid pandemic
What began as a desperate year for startups, characterized by mass layoffs as the pandemic took hold, turned into a record venture capital funding haul. Despite the economic tumult wrought by the coronavirus, startup investing in the U.S. reached a record high of $130 billion in 2020, according to a new Money Tree report from PricewaterhouseCoopers/CB […]
DoD TCDM to Connect Inventors with “Trusted” Funding
On January 13, 2021, the Department of Defense (DoD) announced the launch of its Trusted Capital Digital Marketplace (TCDM) to support qualified small and medium sized businesses (“Domestic Companies”) that make up the defense industrial base (DIB). The TCDM establishes a forum to provide selected innovative domestic companies with access to “vetted” sources of private […]
University City Science Center is launching a new program for first-time entrepreneurs
For Philadelphians, the University City Science Center is working to simplify the answer with a new program called OnRamp. The nonprofit innovation hub has been nurturing new and emerging founders through the business commercialization process for over half a century. Through carefully curated commercialization and incubation programming, such as QED Proof-of-Concept Program, the ic@3401 software incubator and the new Launch Lane accelerator, the Science […]
Dana-Farber launches venture fund targeting incurable cancers
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute is diving deeper into biotech financing, announcing Thursday the launch of Binney Street Capital, its first-ever venture fund. Binney will support new research and technologies as part of the institute’s larger mission to help treat incurable cancers. The fund plans to invest in eight to 10 companies over the next three years, providing between […]
Indiana U launches tech acceleration program
Indiana University has launched its Academic Accelerator program to promote the development of new high-tech ventures. The initiative launched in partnership with the National Security Innovation Network, a program within the U.S. Department of Defense, and Eccalon, a leading research and technology commercialization company. IU is one of four universities in the inaugural cohort designed […]
University of Chicago’s Polsky Center Launches New Deep Tech Accelerator
The Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago has launched the Compass, a first-of-its-kind deep tech accelerator program for early-stage startups and technologies created by researchers at the University of Chicago, Argonne National Laboratory, and Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. Participants gain access to world-class resources over the six month program with the goal of being […]
UW-Milwaukee battery spinout SafeLi rebrands as COnovate, lands $50K investment
COnovate, Inc., a Shorewood company developing materials for lithium ion batteries, is receiving $50,000 in a seed investment from BrightStar Wisconsin Foundation, the Milwaukee-based nonprofit and an early-stage investment organization. COnovate was formerly known as SafeLi LLC, a startup founded in 2016 by University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee professors Carol Hirschmugl and Marija Gajdardziska-Josifovska. The company’s material, named Cophite, is designed […]
Here’s how Ohio State plans to support more startups
Ohio State University’s new research and innovation chief is bullish on increasing the number of startups supported by the university and formed under its wing. Grace Jinliu Wang joined the university Dec. 1 in the newly created role of senior vice president for research, innovation and knowledge enterprise, a position in which she’ll oversee a newly […]
Trask Innovation Fund accepting applications from researchers, innovators seeking to advance Purdue intellectual property
Purdue University inventors who are prepared to move their innovations to market have until Feb. 19 to apply for funding through the Trask Innovation Fund. The fund is designed to advance the commercial potential of Purdue intellectual property through short-term research projects. Submitted proposals will be reviewed by the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization based on criteria including […]
First UK ‘Knowledge Intensive’ deeptech university fund
UK venture capital fund Parkwalk has launched one of the first Knowledge Intensive Funds to be approved by the UK government to invest in deeptech startups. The fund will invest in ground-breaking deeptech businesses spun out of UK universities, but with a facility to carry back income tax relief to the previous tax year and reduced administration […]