As a managing director at the Slater Technology Fund, one of Rhode Island’s oldest seed-stage investment funds, Thorne Sparkman knows that the state’s universities are a hotbed of innovation and burgeoning technology.
To target and support university research-driven ventures and founders, Sparkman was recently tapped to help lead Slater’s new RightHill Ventures fund.
“Slater has invested in more than 40 companies from Brown and URI alone, but our model has grown in recent years when we began to assemble special-purpose funds for our portfolio companies,” Sparkman said. “RightHill Ventures brings these ideas together.”
Sparkman said this new fund will start by drawing on the national pool of Brown University industry and entrepreneurial talent, not only to analyze their potential and build teams, but also to launch their ideas with seed funding from RightHill.
The fund is accepting offers to mentor founders and invest capital in their companies. RightHill is already supported by a $300,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration.
“There’s a ton of money coming in for research, and these programs and projects coming out of the universities tend to tackle compelling problems like carbon capture or cures for cancer,” Sparkman said. “With that hard tech combined with the possibility of patented technology there’s a wide range of investors who may be interested.”
Connecting with alumni, Sparkman said, would provide benefits for investors and young talent.
“We want to lean in pretty hard and tap into these alumni networks as much as possible,” he said. “If there’s someone in the field of gene therapy or whatever folks are working on, we want to build on our connections and inspire each other.”
According to a release, RightHill Ventures will be working with the Nelson Center for Entrepreneurship; Brown University’s Technology Innovations Office and Biomedical Innovations to Impact (BBII) Fund; Brown-Lifespan Center for Digital Health; Brown Angel Group; RI Bio; and the Foundation for the New England Medical Center.
