Two million dollars invested; twenty-three startup companies formed! So much from so little. But how can that be? Is it magic? Or is it more like the 1965 tune by John Sebastian and The Lovin’ Spoonful where “you’ll see how the magic’s in the music and the music’s in me?” Have we truly found a silver bullet to accelerate the commercialization of university research? First, a history lesson on the Texas Ignition Fund and what it is about.
In 2006 the Office of Research and Technology Transfer at The University of Texas System administration formed a small working group to search for mechanisms to enhance the formation of startup companies based on discoveries from the research laboratories of its fifteen member institutions. Arjuna Sanga, Associate Vice Chancellor, Matt Blanton, founder CEO and managing partner of STARTech Early Ventures, and Madison Pedigo, manager of the Texas Instruments Venture Capital Program, comprised the group. After a year of study, the group proposed a model similar to the Deshpande model used at MIT – the core being a “proof of concept” or POC fund. The Board of Regents agreed to the plan in December of 2007 and invested two million dollars in a POC grant program called the Texas Ignition Fund, or TIF.
To read the full, original article click on this link: Go Forth and Innovate!: Do You Believe in Magic? The Texas Ignition Fund
Author: Keith McDowell
