University Gap Funding and Accelerator Community News

Mirror Security, a research-driven cybersecurity company which spun out of University College Dublin (UCD) with the support of NovaUCD, today announced that it has raised $2.5 million (€2.15 million) in pre-seed funding to scale its breakthrough encryption platform for AI security. The funding round was led by (opens in a new

An innovative interdisciplinary collaboration between Penn State’s Smeal College of Business and the College of Agricultural Sciences will focus on fostering innovation in food and agriculture. The 2026 Land Grant Startup Launch Competition is the brainchild of Travis Lesser, the director of Smeal’s Center for the Business of Sustainability, and Mark Gagnon,

OcuHealth, an emerging eye therapeutics start-up, was named overall winner of University College Dublin’s (UCD) VentureLaunch Accelerator Programme for 2025. The joint UCD and South East Technological University (SETU) project received €700,000 through the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Fund and is already being supported by technology transfer offices at SETU and

The University of Utah has unveiled a new strategic model designed to accelerate the translation of research into patient impact. Their integrated framework connects laboratory discoveries, clinical research, infrastructure, and commercialization capabilities — creating a bridge from academic innovation to real-world therapies. This development underscores a broader shift in how

KAUST’s says this “significant milestone” underscores the organization’s growing impact on the global deep-tech landscape. As a leading international graduate-level research university in Saudi Arabia, KAUST’s startup portfolio has celebrated its best year yet in growing not only Saudi Arabia’s high-tech and deep-tech sectors but also contributing to global innovation.

In the past five years, only four universities have spun off 20 or more startups annually. The University of Minnesota ranks among the top four during that time frame. The U’s Technology Commercialization Office (TechCom for short) focuses on the business prospects of ideas generated by researchers there. TechCom has

The University of Michigan achieved its strongest year on record for research commercialization in fiscal year 2025, reporting sharp increases in invention disclosures, licensing activity, startup creation, and capital fundraising. The results reflect the continued expansion of U-M’s innovation ecosystem, driven by researchers, faculty, and the university’s Innovation Partnerships office.

In his recent Forbes article, David Rosowsky explores how research universities are entering a “looking glass” moment: facing structural change in how they teach, how they research, and how they commercialize. Forbes What’s Changing Public funding for research and higher education is under strain, pushing universities to look for alternative

In a major shift for New Zealand’s science and innovation landscape, the Government has unveiled a national intellectual property (IP) policy that will give researchers greater control over their own inventions, encouraging the commercialisation of homegrown ideas and boosting the translation of academic research into real-world products and services. Announced

The University has announced the recipients of the Fall 2025 Orange Innovation Fund, a competitive grant program that fuels early-stage ideas developed by student entrepreneurs. The fund supports innovative projects across campus that demonstrate strong potential to commercialize research. The fund, administered through the University Libraries, is designed to help student founders

  The University of Texas at Austin’s Discovery to Impact unit has opened a 10,000-square-foot off-campus wet lab in North Austin aimed at accelerating life-sciences commercialization by offering private-sector companies access to university research infrastructure and expertise.What’s new: The facility features 33 modular benches, high-end equipment (e.g., Agilent Cytation C10),

The round was led by IP Group Australia and super fund Hostplus, with support from existing investors including Monash Ventures. The funds will go towards first-in-human clinical trials for Rage’s nasal therapy to treat inflammatory lung diseases The startup’s name is an acronym of Receptor for Advanced Glycation End-products (RAGE), a