Every day at Virginia Commonwealth University, faculty researchers are making new discoveries and developing technologies that hold the promise of improving lives and transforming society.
But to take ideas from a laboratory and commercialize them with the hopes of someday seeing their technologies used for good — and hopefully, creating revenue — requires partners beyond the walls of the university and academic medical center.
One of those partners is the Virginia Innovation Partnership Corp., or VIPC. A nonprofit state agency, VIPC is the commercialization and seed stage economic development driver in the Commonwealth. Its team leads funding, infrastructure, and policy initiatives to support Virginia's innovators and startups. To support its mission, VIPC collaborates with local, regional, state, and federal partners — among them, VCU TechTransfer and Ventures.
As part of its work, VIPC manages the Commonwealth Commercialization Fund, which provides funding to technologies with a high potential for economic development and job creation. The fund has distributed more than $55 million to Virginia-based startups, entrepreneurs, and university-based inventors since 2012 in support of critical early technology testing and market validation efforts.
Here's a roundup of those companies and inventors that received awards.
