UT Health San Antonio Plans New Accelerator for Faculty Research

The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio is starting an internal accelerator program for inventors who work at the institution, with the goal of picking a first group of five to eight prospective entrepreneurs around May. The accelerator, which UT Health is calling TechNovum, will run its first program from June through […]

Entrepreneurs capture funding, support in new venture competitions at Tufts UniversityNow

MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass. (April 16, 2019)—Five new ventures, including a noninvasive alternative to traditional methods of spay and neuter and a “hard” kombucha, took home top prizes at Tufts University’s annual entrepreneurship competitions: the 15th annual $100k New Ventures Competition and the Tufts Food and Entrepreneurship Competition. Twenty-six finalist teams, comprised of undergraduate and graduate students, alumni, faculty, and staff […]

ASU launches new accelerator 

Arizona State University and SparkLabs Group, a network of accelerators and venture capital funds, has launched a new startup accelerator program for students and alumni. SparkLabs Frontier-ASU will provide training, mentors and investment funding for participants in the university’s schools and programs, including the engineering, business and global management schools. “SparkLabs Frontier-ASU’s mission is to identify, […]

Raising Seed Funding From a Traditional VC Is Harder Than Ever. Here’s Why

Without a doubt, you’ve heard reports that the VC industry is booming. And it truly is; bigger deals, bigger exits, and bigger funds are making a splash in Venture Capital. After all, who could forget the culmination of SoftBank’s $100 billion “megafund,” Spotify’s historic direct listing, or the roof-shattering $14 billion Series C round raised by Ant Financial […]

What Makes a Successful Startup Team

When venture capital investors are doing due diligence, they focus carefully on the financial side of the business. Does the company have an interesting business model? How big is the addressable market? What are the growth plans of the company? They hire expensive experts and use advanced data tools to answer these questions and ensure […]

BioSTL gets another $100,000 grant to help launch agtech startup program 

Though agriculture is arguably the oldest industry around, it has taken a while for it to get reshaped by some of the new, digital information tools that are transforming other lines of work. But in some cases, old ways of doing things on the farm are changing. Sensor technology can report hyper-detailed field conditions to […]

How Universities Can Support Women-Led Entrepreneurship

When Maria Artunduaga won a University of California award in 2017 for her team’s technology to manage pulmonary disease, she noted a critical factor in the victory: contest-organized mentorship from Jocelyn Brown with the Rice 360˚ Institute for Global Health. “Her experience building health technologies for preterm babies in Africa was key to our success in the Big Ideas student innovation […]

UK incubators nurturing the next biotech generation 

What type of environment is best to foster biotechnology startups through their first years? With more UK universities putting resources into supporting spinout companies, and dedicated life science incubators springing up at sites abandoned by large pharmaceutical firms (and elsewhere), the options for entrepreneurs are expanding in scope, style and availability. Keith Powell, a London-based […]

Harvard OTD launches Experts-in-Residence program

Harvard’s Office of Technology Development (OTD) has launched an Experts-in-Residence (XIR) program, creating a powerful new resource for Harvard faculty and researchers to accelerate startup formation and support the commercialization of University innovations. Initially, 28 XIRs have volunteered for the program. The XIRs include partners at venture capital firms, scientific entrepreneurs, R&D executives, and other respected experts on company […]