A program at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is proving that scientists and VCs can work together. Jim Matheson, a partner at VC firm Flagship Ventures, has become Berkeley Lab’s entrepreneur in residence (EIR). From his firm’s headquarters in Cambridge, MA, he travels to Berkeley monthly to meet with scientists at the lab. The Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy started the EIR program two years ago to accelerate the deployment and commercialization of clean energy technologies from the national laboratories. In the first year, three VC firms were paired with three national labs. The following year, five more firms were each paired with a national lab, including Berkeley Lab.

Like most large research universities and national laboratories, Berkeley Lab has a TTO to help move scientific innovations into the marketplace by filing for patents and negotiating licensing deals. But they don’t always have the time and resources to deliver all the support needed to launch a start-up or to determine if a start-up is even viable. “Unlike other visits from venture capitalists, there’s been a continuity with this program,” says Cheryl Fragiadakis, director of Berkeley Lab’s technology transfer and intellectual property management department. “We’re getting some amount of perspective on our technologies, both in comparison with each other and with what else is out there. He has given us a broader look at the start-up potential of a whole array of technologies in the cleantech space.”

Matheson and his Flagship colleagues have met with close to 100 Berkeley Lab scientists, and they’re now focusing on how to move forward with a small number of them. He’s also held office hours and informal lunch sessions, which Fragiadakis hopes will be the start of a more formal education program. “We’d like to do something to educate our scientific staff on the entrepreneurial world that is a little more structured, more data rich — what’s expected, key elements of success — to make it that much easier to move their technologies out to the private sector,” Fragiadakis says. “Our hope is to go from an average of two start-ups a year to many more a year because of this program.”

Source: Berkeley Lab

Posted July 28th, 2010 under Tech Transfer

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