New Seed Fund to Speed UVA Innovation and Research to the Market

Starting in 2016, the University of Virginia will be propelling entrepreneurship into the market like never before. The University’s new Seed Fund will deploy $10 million over 10 years to help commercialize UVA technologies and opportunities. “UVA’s research enterprise helps drive the economy locally, nationally and globally, while producing discoveries that lead to new technologies, […]

U Michigan Spin-off Akadeum gets $1 million seed

There have been two recent votes of confidence for Ann Arbor-based Akadeum Life Sciences Inc., a 2014 spinoff from the University of Michigan. In October, it finished raising a seed round of $1 million, which will fund product development and beef up sales and marketing. Normally that would be the big news. But that was overshadowed by […]

Marquette launches seed fund to support student, faculty ventures

Marquette University said Thursday it has launched a seed fund that will provide $600,000 of early-stage capital to support student and faculty entrepreneurship on its campus. The effort is being administered by Marquette and funded by the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. “The Marquette Enterprise Seed Fund will offer a critical source of capital to support […]

Rice to invest $150 million in tech research initiatives

Rice University President David Leebron announced a $150 million investment in strategic research initiatives last week. The three-part investment will fund Rice’s molecular nanotechnology research, establish a program in data sciences and promote a broad range of research competitiveness across the university, Leebron said. The investment draws from a combination of endowment, philanthropy and reallocation […]

UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers launches £2 million fund to help bridge ‘valley of death’ between research and bringing products to market

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers is launching a new fund, Stephenson LP, aimed at helping companies overcome the investment hurdle between Research and Development and bringing a product to market. The fund, initially worth a total of £2 million, is in line with the Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ original statement of purpose set out by […]

Indiana University to fund $300M in research

Indiana University will invest at least $300 million during the next five years in a new research program designed to develop transformative solutions to world problems. Titled the Grand Challenges research program, it will fund up to five large-scale research projects that will be selected through a competitive review process, the university announced Wednesday. Applications […]

University of Wisconsin FluGen snaps up $12 mln Series A

FluGen Inc., a biotechnology company developing a novel “universal” influenza vaccine, has completed a $12 million Series A financing. Venture Investors LLC, the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation (WARF), the State of Wisconsin Investment Board, and other new investors participated in this first institutional financing of the company, along with many of FluGen’s existing investors led […]