The University of Arizona (UA) hopes to create more spinoff companies following a deal with The University Funds, a Bellevue, WA-based seed-stage venture development firm. The University Funds will license UA’s IP and build companies around UA innovations, according to Pat Murphy, the company’s co-founder and CEO. The University Funds is being structured as both a venture fund and an incubator that intends to build portfolio companies around the IP coming out of universities. A February SEC filing states that University Funds plans to raise $5 million. Companies formed from UA technologies also will be managed by The University Funds. “It takes entrepreneurial expertise and marketing savvy to get these companies going,” Murphy explains. Last year, UA launched six startups — a record — but Patrick Jones, director of the UA Office of Technology Transfer, hopes to do more this year in the wake of the new relationship. The deal also will complement cooperative arrangements the OTT has struck with IdeaFunding, which holds annual showcases for startups and investors, and the Desert Angels, a local group of private investors. And the arrangement will create networking opportunities because it will connect UA with other regions, Jones says. The University Funds was founded in December 2008, and seven other universities in the Western U.S., including Washington State University, have signed on. No new companies have been funded because the deal is so new, but The University Funds “will bring the right people and resources together,” Jones says. “This business is a contact sport.”

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Posted May 6th, 2009 under Tech Transfer

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