LONDON—The Oxford startup behind AstraZeneca PLC’s Covid-19 vaccine has raised $168 million in new funding, which it plans to use to adopt its vaccine technology for the treatment of other diseases.

The move is a step in Vaccitech Ltd.’s preparations for going public as soon as this year, according to people familiar with the plans. The moves were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.

Image: https://www-wsj-com.cdn.ampproject.org

The percentage of female decision-makers at U.S. venture capital firms continues to climb, albeit slowly, according to a new Axios analysis.

By the numbers: 243 of 1,716 decision-makers are women, or nearly 14.2%. Past marks were 12.4% (2020), 9.7% (2019), 8.9% (2018), 7% (2017), and 5.7% (2016).

61% of the analyzed firms did not have any female decision-makers, which is similar to last year's figure. The percentage of firms with two or more female decision-makers rose from 9.7% to 11.6%, although it's 26.6% for firms that raised $1 billion or more between 2015 and 2020.

Image: Illustration: Eniola Odetunde/Axios

The year 2020 saw dramatic swings in regional investment trends as the COVID-19 pandemic led startups to raise funds to bolster their balance sheets and extend their runway. In total, 171 companies raised $993 million, a decrease from the almost $3 billion raised in 2019, but reflecting the second-best investment year in the past decade. In the past 10 years, nearly 600 unique Pittsburgh companies attracted a total of over $7.2b in investment. 

The COVID-19 pandemic put the spotlight on Wisconsin’s biohealth industry as companies came together to play a key role in fighting the disease.

Lisa Johnson is CEO of BioForward Wisconsin, which represents the state’s biohealth cluster of more than 220 member organizations. In an interview this week with WisBusiness.com, she talked about the state of the industry just a year after the pandemic started. 

Image: https://www.wisbusiness.com

They say entrepreneurship is all about “innovation,” but... if you’ve been running your own small business for a while, it’s not unusual to feel stuck in a rut.

Let’s face it, burnout and fatigue are constant threats in this line of work, and it is all too easy to lose that “innovation” spark that once drove you. The good news is that just like any other skill, innovation can be learned.

It may take a bit of practice, but you can strengthen your mindset or regain the creative juices that you feel are a bit lacking as of late.

Image: "Thought Leader" STEVE WASTERVAL - https://www.forbes.com

In January 2010, an “unpowered” wooden sailing vessel more than 70 years old, the Tres Hombres, arrived in Port-au-Prince carrying desperately needed earthquake relief supplies from Dutch humanitarian organizations for the people of Haiti. Although not the first contemporary version of “green logistics,” Tres Hombres — propelled by a trio of clean energy technologies: sails, wind turbines and recycled vegetable oil — epitomized the entrepreneurial spirit of today’s retro-revolutionary sail freight movement.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has officially given himself a new title.

A document filed with the SEC shows that as of Monday, Elon Musk officially has the title of "Technoking" at Tesla.

The same filing shows that Tesla chief financial officer Zach Kirkhorn has also been given the title of "Master of Coin." This is an apparent reference to the television series "Game of Thrones" — or the book series it was based on, "A Song of Ice and Fire" — in which the position of royal treasurer was called "Master of Coin."

You’re a Hollywood celebrity with the world at your feet … nothing to worry about, right? Well – not always. 

A household name and star of a dozen comedy hits, Jim Carrey is widely known as Hollywood’s leading funnyman, yet behind his signature glowing smile is a hard truth: even the greatest performers – sometimes more of them than we think – struggle with their mental health.

America has been lazily divided by pundits into red and blue states, as if there weren’t constant movement of people between them. Fortunately, reality is a lot more purple — and hopeful — as immigrants, people of color and millennials reshape parts of America by voting with their feet and moving.

CY: 2020 Ben Franklin Approved $6.9 Million in 46 Companies - Ben Franklin Technology Partners

AURP Spring Training, with our theme, Reshaping the Innovation Ecosystem, takes place on Thursday's throughout April.

Research parks and innovation districts remain the resilient drivers in the world's knowledge economy.

Join us virtually for this year's Spring Training 2021, where our innovation leaders will still dive deep into discussions with C-Suite executives plus innovation pioneers to lead discovery dialogue preparing you for opportunities, and strategies for decades to come.

We are going low-tech to include informal lunch groups and roundtable breakout rooms so participants will engage openly and directly with their peers, sponsors, and session leaders.

#BuildingtheAURPNetwork #AURPSpringTraining2021

I’m a very logical guy, so I still fondly remember when new solutions and technologies started trends on the basis of their logical strengths. In today’s world, it seems that emotion, not logic, sparks the new trends that become culture, and drives our devotion or disappointment in new products and brands. How does an entrepreneur best deal with that environment?

Image: https://blog.startupprofessionals.com

Very small businesses already had tough odds prior to the pandemic. In addition to the upfront costs associated with starting a business, there is an invisible web of paperwork, regulations and zoning that can be prohibitive, particularly for those without the capital or the knowledge needed to navigate them. In response to the pandemic, some local governments have tried to ease regulations to make the entire permitting process smoother to navigate and improve mentorship opportunities for those without the requisite connections. These long-term strategies, as well as short-term rent relief programs that could survive in some form after the pandemic, could potentially lead to a more inclusive small business landscape in the years ahead.

For an economy to flourish and constantly refresh itself, new ideas, products and companies must rise to take the place of the old. It’s a phenomenon economists call “creative destruction” and it has driven the American and Wisconsin economies for generations.

Startups and scale-ups push up from below in the economy, creating most net new jobs in the United States as older companies mature, sometimes shedding jobs or shutting down.

Nine years ago, Katrina Hoop earned tenure at Saint Joseph’s College of Maine, a small private institution. It had been a long road to get there: Six years in graduate school, then another six on the tenure track. She committed herself to Saint Joseph’s, becoming chair of the sociology department, expanding its reach to students in crucial majors like nursing, and serving on numerous committees for the day-to-day work of the college.

With the distinction of tenure, she thought she’d earned a permanent place at the college.

But the end came quickly: Last March, as the pandemic shuttered colleges across the country, administrators at Saint Joseph’s decided to close the sociology program and others. In a letter that struck Hoop as devoid of the empathy she expected from the Sisters of Mercy institution, she was laid off, along with seven others across the campus, including a Catholic sister.

In just a few decades, it’s possible that some of today’s most recognized companies may no longer be household names.

Corporate longevity, or the average lifespan of a company, has been shrinking dramatically.

In the 1960s, a typical S&P 500 company was projected to last for more than 60 years. However, with the rapidly transforming business landscape today, it’s down to just 18 years.

Image: https://www.visualcapitalist.com

Marina Massingham, CEO, Aifred Health, and Laurent Waessa, Senior Business Development Advisor, Québec Government Office in New York, join BioTalk to discuss their backgrounds, Ecosystems for Entrepreneurs, and how Quebec can find partnerships in the BioHealth Capital Region

Listen via Apple http://apple.co/3lfW7q5, Google http://bit.ly/3qJm2HP, Spotify http://spoti.fi/30LaoSc, and TuneIn http://bit.ly/30JHq4Z.

Venture capital, like the rest of the alternative investments industry, has made efforts towards improving diversity and inclusion (D&I) in recent years, but progress is still too slow. When it comes to gender, for example, recent figures from data provider Preqin show that the proportion of alternative assets employees who are female rose very modestly from 18.8% in 2018 to 19.7% in 2019.

Tucson, AZ, and Melbourne, Florida, March 8, 2021 – The Association of University Research Parks (AURP), a global nonprofit membership organization celebrating 35 years of serving the university and institutional research parks community, today announced the Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS), manager of the International Space Station (ISS) U.S. National Laboratory, has become a new AURP member.

When the blank-check company craze took off last year, many venture capitalists were initially sheepish about forming SPACs of their own.

Venture firms were wary of adding a strategy that differs from their core business and concerned about the lack of public market expertise. But then VCs watched from the sidelines as a long string of private equity firms, hedge funds and other investors rushed to take advantage of abundant capital and lucrative opportunities in the SPAC market.