A Kansas-based private capital company announced Thursday it is investing up to $400,000 in a University of California Davis program that develops campus research into commercial uses.
TechAccel LLC is collaborating with Davis researchers in the fields of animal health, agriculture, food and nutrition. The investment firm, based in Shawnee Mission, Kan., and founded in 2014, has similar agreements with at least 14 other agriculture and animal health universities internationally.
TechAccel LLC announced Thursday it is investing up to $400,000 in a University of California Davis program that develops campus research into commercial uses.
The investment firm will deploy its money through the existing UC Davis STAIR-Plus Program, which is an expansion of the campus’ Science Translation and Innovative Research grant program.
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The STAIR and STAIR-Plus programs are sponsored by Venture Catalyst in the UC Davis Office of Research. The programs aim to commercialize campus research and innovation.
Under the new collaboration agreement, TechAccel has agreed to initially fund up to four projects at up to $100,000 each. Successful STAIR-Plus program graduates can also be eligible for the TechAccel Emerging Company investments which can exceed $1 million. Technologies eligible for consideration in this funding are limited to animal, agriculture and food sciences.
The objective of the programs is to help researchers demonstrate proof-of-concept or commercial viability of Davis-developed intellectual property.
“Collaboration with best-in-class ag, animal health and food science research universities is of critical importance to TechAccel’s model for advancing transformative innovation,” said TechAccel founder and CEO Michael Helmstetter, in a news release.
”We are excited by this collaboration, which offers significant potential to enhance the support we are already providing through our Venture Catalyst STAIR Grant program, to our innovative researchers in ag-tech, food science and animal health,” said Dushyant Pathak, associate vice chancellor for research and executive director of the Venture Catalyst program at Davis, in a news release
Source: TechAccel invests $400K in UC Davis research program – Sacramento Business Journal
