A decade ago, CU Boulder launched an average of four to six startups based on university inventions annually. Today, it stands as a national leader, having launched more startups in FY 2024 than any other university campus, followed by the University of Michigan, the University of Minnesota and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), according to data released in July from AUTM (Association of University Technology Managers), the leading association tracking university technology transfer. AUTM counts startups that are founded with an agreement between the company and university to commercialize specific university intellectual property (IP).
In AUTM’s data going back to 1990, only Stanford University has exceeded CU Boulder in the total number of startups launched in a single year, with 38 startups in 2022.
