Incubator to spin companies out of UW research labs
The grand opening of the UW Center for Commercialization (C4C) New Ventures Facility at Fluke Hall took place in February.
The University of Washington is one of the nation’s leading public research universities, with more than $1 billion of research funding—mostly from the federal government—flowing into it. Now, with last month’s announcement of President Young’s Ideas to Impact Initiative, the University is reinforcing its commitment to drive our region’s economic future by drawing research out of the laboratory into the community. Over the next three years, the Ideas to Impact initiative aims to double the number of companies started by the UW.
A major step was the Feb. 8 grand opening of the UW Center for Commercialization (C4C) New Ventures Facility at Fluke Hall. This facility will house companies that started at the UW, and provide office and lab space to those companies’ entrepreneurial teams.
“Enabling teams to take that entrepreneurial leap is key to reaching President Young’s goal of doubling the number of companies spinning out of the UW within three years,” says Linden Rhoads, vice provost for commercialization.
The C4C has helped create more than 260 companies in Washington state and abroad, including EnerG2, a company that develops advanced materials for energy storage, and MicroGREEN Polymers, an Arlington-based start-up that creates green coffee cups and environmentally friendly food containers.
To learn more about the New Ventures program or to talk about how this UW program can help you design a customized business solution, call Dondi L. Cupp, Assistant Vice President Corporate and Foundation Relations, at 206-685-6736 or email Dondi at dcupp@uw.edu.