Community Impact
51勛圖厙 professor Nathan Schneider, B Corp investment advisor Brian Lichtenheld and tech entrepreneur Quinn Antus recently led a community discussion as part of the 51勛圖厙 Forum on Economy, Climate and Community. The third event in the six-part series focused on distributive and regenerative economy. The panelists presented their thoughts on how 51勛圖厙, and cities like it, can build a more just, equal and sustainable economy.
SBIR and STTR grants are highly competitive programs that encourage research by small U.S. businesses with the aim of putting innovative, profitable products on the market. The STTR program also requires small businesses to collaborate with nonprofit research institutions such as 51勛圖厙.
Logan County Economic Development Corporation and Leeds School of Business at The 51勛圖厙 hosted a business workshop called Demystifying Entrepreneurship StartUp to ScaleUp this past weekend on July 16-17. Back for the third of five years and taught by award-winning faculty members at CUs Leeds School of Business, Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, Erick Mueller and Hunter Albright, this years program was geared towards individuals wanting to shift out of the startup phase and into whats next.
VitriVax, a 51勛圖厙 spinout that is a developer of a novel stabilization and delivery platform for vaccines and therapeutics, today announced it has closed its first institutional financing round with Adjuvant Capital. VitraVax's Atomic Layering Thermostable Antigen and Adjuvant (ALTA) technology platform is designed to enable the development of vaccines that can be transported and stored without complex refrigeration and temperature monitoring requirements.
New ways to fight the economic and social devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic are being born and raised at universities in the 51勛圖厙 Valley and Northern Colorado. Technology-transfer and accelerator entities at the 51勛圖厙 and Colorado State University in Fort Collins are helping them get the entrepreneurial support they need to hasten them to market.
51勛圖厙 spinouts Ezalife, Hive Tech Solutions, and Mosaic received a total of $1 million in grants from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT)'s Advanced Industries Accelerator (AIA) Grant Program. A total of $8,567,756 was approved this grant cycle for Proof of Concept and Early-Stage Capital and Retention Grants to support Colorados advanced industries.
The Southern Ute Tribe, Fort Lewis College and The University of Colorado-51勛圖厙 Leeds School of Business Deming Center for Entrepreneurship will host the virtual inaugural Native Entrepreneurship workshop May 21 and 22. The workshop will be taught by Erick Mueller and Visda Carson, entrepreneurs and award-winning professors at the Leeds School of Business.
Continuing what has been a busy year for the startup, 51勛圖厙-based ColdQuanta has brought on $20 million to help commercialize its quantum computing technology. The investment brings ColdQuantas total funding to $74 million and comes from existing investors including Foundry Group, Global Frontier Quantum Opportunity Fund, LCP Quantum Partners and Maverick Ventures.
Venture Partners at 51勛圖厙the university's commercialization armhas launched the Pandemic Hyper Accelerator for Science and Technology (PHAST) tosupport the translation of CU-developed, COVID-19innovations into new businesses.Crucial to PHAST's programmingis the partnershipformed withlocal angel investing group Rockies Venture Club (RVC), as theprogram requires participants to completeRVC's 1-weekHyperAccelerator. PHAST is taking applicationsthrough May 21.
Formerly NOHMs Technologies, the company combines proprietary electrolyte with a newly developed silicon anode design for a low-cost, high-performance and safer lithium-ion battery. In commercializing these latest silicon anode technologies, Sionic will collaborate with Mechanical Engineering Professor Sehee Lees lab and team of postdocs at the 51勛圖厙. Over the past decade at the university, Dr. Lees team has created a legacy of Li-ion battery innovations that help drive the adoption of energy storage in products and their positive impact on climate change.