‘We’re building critical mass’: UC’s Venture Lab hits key metric in third year

The University of Cincinnati has made major strides in its efforts to get more campus-bred, early-stage startups off the ground.

The college, the region’s largest and one of the top research institutions in the country, pre-2018, was only producing about one to two such ventures each year – upstarts led by Bearcat students, faculty and staff.

Today, that number is up about 1,500%. Last month, UC surpassed a key metric, a count that David Adams, the university’s recently onboarded chief innovation officer and architect behind the emerging Cincinnati Innovation District, has been watching for some time. The Venture Lab, a 3-year-old pre-accelerator program housed at UC’s 1819 Innovation Hub, graduated its 50th startup with the conclusion of its most recent cohort.

Adams said it’s a sign of success, but not in the way most might traditionally think. The number, while maybe purely a vanity metric, is a yardstick for future success.

“In a very real way, it’s a moment for us to pause and reflect and acknowledge what our community has done to accelerate entrepreneurial efforts at the University of Cincinnati,” Adams told me.

“We’re building critical mass. The most important part isn’t whether one of these 50 startups is going to be the region’s next unicorn,” he added. “Our focus right now is how do we create a culture of entrepreneurship, and the fact that we’ve have gone past 50 (startups), to me is a real testament to that.”

Universities tend to be strong startup generators, but UC, Adams said, historically has been hampered:

“Our IP policies made it difficult for a faculty member to bring their IP out of the lab into a startup, and we knew this because venture capitalists were telling us, ‘It’s difficult to work with you,’” Adams said.

Adams helped find solutions for both.

UC launched the Venture Lab, essentially creating the program from scratch, in 2018. Its new IP policy has served as a model for the Ohio IP Promise. All 14 state universities have agreed to use the Ohio IP Promise as a starting point for their own commercialization process, so students and faculty have a more clear path to commercialization. 

The Venture Lab takes companies at the very earliest possible stages. The seven-week program walks participants through problem solving, customer discovery, market landscape, value proposition and storytelling. Teams are guided by Venture Lab staff and entrepreneurs-in-residence, or accomplished founders and/or industry experts.

The idea faced friction at first – there was uncertainly about how the Venture Lab would fit in the overall ecosystem given the wide array of accelerator programs already more established – but Grant Hoffman, UC’s director of startups, said it’s settled into its role. The program, he said, instead of competing, has created a pipeline for other programs that may not otherwise take such ideas on and provides deal flow for local investment groups. 

“The whole point is these companies won’t go anywhere unless they can be molded, beat up, coached, fostered,” Hoffman said. “We are the earliest place in town to take an idea.”

UC, so far, has invested more than $5 million in non-diluted grant capital in 30-plus companies. Hoffman said 10 or so have raised additional funds, including Amplicore Inc., a Mason-based biopharma developing a new pipeline of drugs to treat musculoskeletal disorders like osteoarthritis, which closed a $4 million seed round in March.

Band Connect, a digital health startup, is another potential success story. Co-founder Abby McInturf, a 2018 graduate of UC's College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP), was essentially hand-picked to participate in the Venture Lab’s very first cohort. Hoffman said the program’s idea was so new, recruiting was initially the only way to get teams through the door. 

Using the Venture Lab, McInturf was able to pivot from her initial idea – a concussion prevention tool for women’s soccer athletes – to a more viable space in physical therapy. Band Connect, which officially launched in 2019, provides an in-home rehabilitation option for patients. Its fitness equipment is outfitted with sensor-enabled hardware that connects to a software platform that instruct patients on how to do exercises correctly. She said it’s the only such technology on the market that eliminates the use of cameras. 

Band Connect is on the cusp of initiating two clinical trials to test its product with a pair of Cincinnati health care systems. McInturf declined to name the specific partners. Once trials are underway, the company will raise a seed round of funding to accelerate commercialization and product development, she said. 

“Band Connect wouldn’t have been possible without the Venture Lab,” McInturf said. “As a student, I wouldn’t have been able to get this off the ground. It’s really the foundation that started it all.” 

50 and counting

University of Cincinnati’s Venture Lab, a startup pre-accelerator, has graduated 50-plus companies since its founding in 2018: