How To Fund Commercialization of University Research? Crowdfunding, of Course!
Perhaps it was just a matter of time – but here’s a new development in the funding of academic research and technology commercialization. The University of Utah’s Technology Commercialization Office (TCO)—#1 in the country for startups launched by research organizations for three of the last five years—has spun off more than 150 companies in the past seven […]
University Crowdfunding: New capital requires new talent
Crowdfunding is seeping into mainstream conversation on university campuses around the world. This emerging funding vehicle, which targets smaller investments from a large number of people, has demonstrated historic success when directed at things like art studios and trendy gadgets; however, now it is being weighed for inclusion as a legitimate source of capital for […]
Crowdfunding crazies ruining it for the rest of us?
In our University Crowdfunding Review last week (available here), we identified this sort of malicious misrepresentation as a stopper for crowdfunding for equity. How will stories like this affect political momentum and investors’ willingness to participate in this emerging funding vehicle? Will the perception of this risk/public fallout be magnified at the university-leve? ——– Regulators are scrutinizing […]
University of New Mexico STC looks into crowdfunding to fill the gap
ALBUQUERQUE, NM – JANUARY 18, 2013 As part of its ongoing effort to expand its gap fund program for new technologies developed at the University of New Mexico, STC is promoting three of its technologies for funding donations on the crowdfunding website RocketHub (http://www.rockethub.com/profiles/61336-stc-unm). See Dan Mayfield’s interview with STC President & CEO Lisa Kuuttila in […]
Kickstarter demonstrates the opportunities and challenges ahead for crowdfunding developmentally-rigorous technologies and start-ups
Crowdfunding heavyweight, Kickstar, just released its 2012 year in review. They observed a monumental increase in all-around activity from funding pledged ($320M) to backer participation(2.24M). However, the portion of these funds that went to technology projects was just 9%, with most directed at theater, music, gaming, and design. Will there be the interest behind more […]
Crowdfunding: Disrupting the Old Boys Network
A good opinion piece from David Drake, the expert at our first University Crowdfunding Policy Event (January 16th) REGISTER Crowdfunding for projects and companies is nothing new. In the online arena, however, it is quite young – in 1997 fans of the UK rock group Marillion ran the first recognized internet crowdfunding campaign, raising $60,000 […]
Mind the Gap looks into crowdfunding as a gap funding approach
In its most recent Mind the Gap landscape report, innovosource identified crowdfunding as an emerging investment vehicle that may be better positioned to support the capital requirements of translational research, proof of concept projects, and early-stage start-ups than more traditional capital sources, like venture capital and angel investment. This funding approach taps into the masses for smaller, more manageable investments […]