Category: Illinois

U Illinois Announces Newest Round of POC Recipients, 7 Awards

The Office of Technology Management (OTM) is proud to announce the 2015 awardees of the Illinois Proof-of-Concept Funding Program (I-POC). I-POC funds development projects that will help demonstrate an innovation’s viability to potential investors and partners. 2015 I-POC Award Recipients: This year’s I-POC award recipients were selected from a stellar pool of applicants from colleges […]

Northwestern tech spinout Tanvas gets $5 million from Peak6, R7

Haptics, the science of making devices more touchy-feely, is getting more attention from researchers and investors. A haptics startup launched by two Northwestern University professors got a $5 million boost from investors that include Chicago venture fund R7 Partners, trading firm Peak6 and Northwestern. Tanvas is developing next-generation technology for touch screens that will allow […]

UChicago College New Venture Challenge Winners awards $20K

At the kick off to University of Chicago’s New Venture Challenges, two first year teams were awarded $10,000 to fund their dorm room ventures. The judges decided to split the first place prize at the College New Venture Challenge (open only to undergraduates), awarding $10,000 to both Athenir, a research aggregate service, and UProspie, a […]

Chicago Innovation Exchange announces six finalists for grant

Chicago Innovation Exchange (CIE) announced the six finalists now in the running to receive backing from the Innovation Fund in a statement released last week, including proposals for a new drug to test for multiple sclerosis and a series of data collection tools able to transmit data without Internet, among others. The Innovation Fund, run […]

Illinois Ventures Fund Grants $125K to University Researchers

Researchers from three universities in Illinois have received the first batch of funding from IllinoisVentures, a University of Illinois-born fund that launched in October and aims to accelerate the commercialization of new technologies. Five researchers from the University of Chicago, Northwestern, and the University of Illinois at Chicago received a total of $125,000 in grants […]

A billion in VC funding is real money for Chicago

More venture capital flowed into Chicago startups in 2014 than any year since the dot-com boom 15 years ago, topping $1 billion. But while all that cash makes it easier to launch and grow a company here, funding levels still lagged behind those of other big cities. The year started off anemically, with barely more […]

University of Chicago Innovation Fund Awards $400,000 to 4 Startups

Four startups affiliated with the University of Chicago received part of a $400,000 investment from the UChicago Innovation Fund, a five-year-old initiative managed by the Chicago Innovation Exchange that invests in promising early stage projects run by university students, staff and faculty. Since 2010 the fund has invested more than $2.5 million in more than 30 projects. […]

Update on University of Illinois Proof-of-Concept Program

    Last spring, the University launched the Illinois Proof-of-Concept fund (I-POC) to help bridge the gap between University innovations and the marketplace by funding research and development that will demonstrate an innovation’s market viability to potential investors and partners. In the first round, five faculty projects were funded. Recipients included: Kaustubh Bhalerao, from the […]

Seed fund for Illinois university tech startups launched

The state is launching a $500,000 seed fund to encourage tech spinoffs from Illinois universities. Many of the universities, such as University of Illinois at Chicago and University of Chicago, already have their own larger funds aimed at moving ideas from the lab to the commercial market.