Twin Cities to host first summit connecting university tech and startup funds with industry and investors
The Twin Cities will host the first gathering focused on connecting university tech and startup funds with innovative companies and early-stage investors. COvergence, scheduled for July 11th, is aimed at jump starting conversation around active university proof of concept, startup, and venture gap funds and accelerators that will lead to greater collaboration to advance innovation from the lab to the marketplace.
Texas Medical Center’s TMC Venture Fund invests $500K in Two Medical Device Startups
In another landmark event, two medical device startups – CorInnova and Intelligent Implants – were each awarded $250,000 grants at the Texas Medical Center (TMC) on Thursday. These funds were from the $25 million TMC Venture Fund which was raised by the Texas Medical Center to support new startups in the healthcare sector. This announcement […]
Michigan’s Venture Investors adding $100 million fund for med device/health startups
A document which contains plans to raise $100 million in healthcare funds, was recently submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission by a venture capital firm in Madison, Wisconsin, – Venture Investors LLC – which also has a strong business presence in Michigan. The name of this fund is Venture Investors Health 6 LP. […]
Advance Queensland innovation fund gets AU$73m Budget boos
The Queensland government has handed down its 2018-19 Budget, with jobs and innovation once again a focus for the state. The state’s innovation fund Advance Queensland, launched three years ago during the 2015-16 Budget, will be receiving a further AU$73 million over four years, bringing the total kitty to AU$650 million. Specifically, the new cash injection […]
University of Michigan’s Desai Accelerator Invests in Six Startups to Kick Off 2018 Summer Cohort
This week, the Desai Accelerator, a joint venture between the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and the College of Engineering, welcomed six teams into its Summer 2018 cohort and debuted an expanded intern program to support those startups in their development. The Desai Accelerator, managed by the Ross School’s Samuel Zell & Robert H. Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurial Studiesand […]
After hiatus, Sony is back in the corporate venture capital game
Launched in 2016, the Innovation Fund targets early stage companies in robotics, artificial intelligence, virtual reality, video, music, entertainment and other technologies. It has invested in around 25 companies in the U.S., Japan and Europe so far. The average investment is a few million in each company. “We are focused on early stage startups, so […]
Alumni desiring specific avenues for donation; university gap funds and accelerators a good option (from WSJ)
Observation: Timely Wall Street Journal article on the trend of alumni donors to more specific investments. I would suggest that one for the more effective routes is getting these alumni behind future research, education, and innovation, through university gap funding and accelerator programs. In a soon to be released update to the Mind the Gap […]
POC Work on Blood-Cleaning NanoRobots Conjurs Memories of Body Wars
An unprecedented breakthrough has been made in the area of biotechnology. This doesn’t come as a surprise, as we have been experiencing rapid development in the application of technology to biological processes in the recent years. A research team led by two professors (Joseph Wang and Liangfang Zhang) from the Department of NanoEngineering at the UC San […]
Accelerating Berkeley startups at SkyDeck | TechCrunch
True to its name, SkyDeck has one of the best views in all of Berkeley. You can UC Berkeley on one side and a wide swath of the bay on the other, with San Francisco just barely peeking through the fog. If nothing else, the accelerator’s killer piece of real estate feels like a physical manifestation of […]
University of Utah Doctor, Students Raise $975,000 for Intubation Technology
While treating people in Africa, University of Utah anesthesiologist Sean Runnels invented a suite of intubation tools for placing breathing tubes during medical procedures. Now, he is moving rapidly toward selling the products. With help from students at the U’s Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute and the Center for Technology & Venture Commercialization (TVC), he refined his […]