Press
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June 30, 2005 |
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University of Maryland Announces New Program to Help Faculty and Students Launch Companies
VentureAccelerator Will Bridge Gap Between Research and Viable Commercial Ventures
COLLEGE
PARK,
Md. -- The A. James Clark School of Engineering’s Maryland Technology Enterprise Institute announces a new program, called VentureAccelerator, to help faculty and students start companies based upon innovative, university-created intellectual property.
The program will seek out promising technologies and inventors at the University and offer them hands-on assistance with a range of processes vital to the successful launch of new businesses. These processes include market validation, business planning, staffing, and initial funding.
“VA offers entrepreneurial faculty and students methodical assistance and resources designed to accelerate the formation and launch of new technology enterprises,” said Scott Laughlin, director of VentureAccelerator. “We believe our program's hands-on guidance, networking opportunities, and resources offer a unique value proposition to faculty and students with high-potential intellectual property and a desire to form new technology ventures.”
The program is part of a comprehensive plan by the Clark School to create both a culture and support infrastructure for technology entrepreneurship, as well as to commercialize more university-created inventions.
“There is always a gap between pure science and applied research done at a university and the existence of a viable commercial opportunity,” said Scott Laughlin, director of VentureAccelerator. “VA’s goal is to bridge that gap through the tried and true ‘sweat and shoe leather’ model. We’re going to roll up our sleeves to help form and grow new companies.”
Laughlin, whose entrepreneurial background includes, early management at technology start-ups such as LinkExchange (acquiredby Microsoft), investment and advisory roles in other new companies such as Xythos Software, Zappos.com, TellMe, AirTegrity, Eurekster, and TruGamerz, and a partnership at the $600 million venture capital group IDG Ventures, sees the University as a perfect fit for an entrepreneurship assistance program.
“The average early-stage venture capital firm may invest $50 million over seven to ten years in new technologies, ” said Scott Laughlin, director of VentureAccelerator. “The University conducts almost $300 million in primary technical research annually. At this level and pace of investment, there has to be intellectual property with exceptional commercial potential we are not unlocking and bringing out to benefit the marketplace.”
Laughlin would like to see VentureAccelerator encourage and assist two to three faculty- or student-led groups to form new companies every year based on innovations created at the University of Maryland.
“There’s a list of things a venture has to do to move forward,” he explained. “Selecting the right market, validating that market, authoring a well-thought-out and fundable business plan, finding business people to partner with inventors, teaming them with accomplished lenders, and securing initial funding—all of these need to happen for you to have any chance of becoming a viable new company.
“There are right ways and wrong ways to do these things; we’re trying to get on the right side of all of those equations. That’s the acceleration process: we strive to help first-time entrepreneurs avoid the mistakes inherent to trial and error.”
Laughlin plans to aggressively take his program to faculty and students. Promising inventors will go through a simple application and review process.
The official VA launch comes from a successful pilot program directed by Scott Magids, who is now the director of the Clark School’s venture incubator, the Technology Advancement Program.
Through VA, Laughlin plans to build a network of professionals in the region who are willing to take high-risk, high-potential positions with new companies formed through VA.
In addition, this fall, a graduate-level laboratory course will be introduced where students will work closely with VA companies on projects such as due diligence, market research, and financial planning.
For more information about VA, visit www.va.umd.edu. To read about the Clark School’s comprehensive plan for increasing commercialized technology, visit http://help.senate.gov/testimony/t321_tes.html.
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