Four Midwest universities are getting a grant from the National Science Foundation to transform university tech into startups.
On Wednesday, the NSF announced a $3.5 million grant to establish a Midwest node for their I-Corps program, which offers funding and programming to help researchers explore customer discovery and commercial potential of their tech. The node will be managed by University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Purdue University, and the University of Toledo.
We will leverage each other’s strengths
As partners in this new regional node, the four universities will offer each other shared resources and mentors, collaborate on new ventures, and host training programs for scientists and engineers throughout the region to think about the implications of their tech beyond the lab. The goal is to grow an entrepreneurship ecosystem among the top engineering schools.
“In developing this collaboration, we will leverage each other’s strengths,” said Jed Taylor, director of operations for UIUC's Technology Entrepreneur Center (TEC) in a statement.
UIUC has taken part in the I-Corps program for the past three years. Each semester, 10 to 11 teams work for seven weeks out of TEC. As part of the curriculum, they're asked to talk with at least 50 potential customers and experts in their space. This helps startups validate their value proposition and better understand their potential customer. Startups get $2,000 in funding through the program.
Once startups have completed a regional I-Corps, they can attend the national I-Corps program (which builds on creating a viable business plan and go-to-market strategy, and offers $50,000 in funding). Beyond that, NSF encourages startups to apply for Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grants to help with the final step: getting early stage startups and products to market.
“The I-Corps program was created five years ago to increase the likelihood of teams succeeding once they reach the SBIR program,” Taylor added. “I-Corps bridges the gap, giving teams a little money for customer discovery before they spend more time and resources into creating a product. This allows teams to either fail quickly, validate their product idea, or in lot of cases, shift the focus into something more likely to succeed.”
Startups out of UIUC's I-Corps program include Rithmio, a gesture-recognition startup in Chicago; Petronics, a Champaign-based hardware startup creating interactive cat toys; and Veriflow, a Champaign and Oakland, Calif.-based startup creating high-level network security solutions.
“The I-Corps program helped us to narrow down our customer segments and focus on key value propositions at an important early stage of our company," said Brighten Godfrey, cofounder and CTO at Veriflow, said. "Going through this customer discovery exercise was critical in landing our early SBIR funding."
