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CU Boulder has developed a groundbreaking pipeline to translate research into real-world impact, as highlighted in the 2022 Annual Report of Venture Partners at CU Boulder, the university’s commercialization arm. 

The mission of Venture Partners is to catalyze the translation of research into successful commercial ventures. In 2022, Venture Partners executed 87 license and option agreements to partner CU Boulder technologies with commercial businesses, including 12 newly formed startup companies they helped create. The Venture Partner startup portfolio raised $337 million in new capital over the past year. Two CU Boulder spinout companies, SomaLogic and Solid Power, went public in 2022; each listed on the NASDAQ with an opening valuation of more than $2 billion.  

Last year, the Business Research Division of the Leeds School of Business conducted a study that found commercialization at CU Boulder, over a period of five years, created an economic impact of $8 billion on the national economy and over $5.2 billion in Colorado.   

Vitro3D—a CU Boulder startup—exemplifies how Venture Partners helps university innovators navigate the challenges of turning new discoveries into products and services that improve people’s lives. The company recently reached a significant fundraising milestone of $1.3 million to bring their novel 3D printing technology to market to produce dental aligners that are less expensive and faster to produce than currently available options. Camila Uzcategui and Johnny Hergert started Vitro3D while they were PhD students in Professor Bob McLeod’s lab in CU Boulder’s College of Engineering and Applied Science. 

Signature events in last year connected investors with burgeoning innovators. The Lab Venture Challenge—a collaboration with the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT)—awarded more than $1 million in grant funding to university researchers. Destination Startup brought investors and startups together in person and virtually in partnership with over a dozen universities in the Intermountain West. 

Venture Partners continues to grow its suite of entrepreneurial training and opportunities for CU Boulder researchers including the Ascent Deep Tech Accelerator, and working as a leader of the I-Corps™ Hub: West Region, one of the National Science Foundation Innovation Corps (“I-Corps”) Hubs.