Venture Partners at CU Boulder: News

The Intermountain West innovation ecosystem came together at the sixth annual Destination Startup Investor Showcase hosted by Venture Partners at CU Boulder. In a highly competitive field, twenty-three select ventures from the region’s research institutions presented at the showcase.

The New Venture Challenge (NVC) and Venture Partners at CU Boulder teamed up to present the NVC Deep Tech competition, awarding $53K to groundbreaking new ventures from CU Boulder, including innovative approaches to wastewater treatment, novel battery technology and dynamic pricing for hotels.

CU Boulder researchers, venture capitalists, companies and entrepreneurs, federal lab researchers and local government leaders took part in a day of networking and discussions to inform impactful, commercially-relevant energy research at CU Boulder and introduce external partners to innovative university efforts.

Spencer Dansereau, a CU Boulder aerospace PhD student, aims to take carbon dioxide emissions from power plants and extract the carbon molecules to create 3D printed carbon fiber, which can be used for everything from bicycles to aerospace components—turning air pollution into a useable product.

LongPath harnesses quantum technology to detect methane emissions from oil and gas operations, an innovation that benefits industry and investors—and the planet. Recently, LongPath received landmark financial backing from the DOE to accelerate the scale-up of the company’s monitoring systems.

A dozen entrepreneurs and 10 groundbreaking innovations took center stage at the recent inaugural Embark Showcase—the pinnacle of the program’s first year working with selected entrepreneurs to provide IP rights, salary support, grant funds and investor introductions to launch startups with real-world impact.

In 2011, Jeffrey Thayer (Aerospace Engineering) invented LiteWave's core technology—a new type of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) that can ‘see’ objects in shallow water from above the water’s surface—alongside two CU Boulder graduate students. The company has now been acquired by Arcfield.

Sixteen teams of faculty, researchers and graduate student innovators competed for a combined $1.5M in startup funding grants in this year’s Lab Venture Challenge. Judges from CU Boulder’s entrepreneurial network heard pitches across two nights for innovations in biosciences, physical sciences and engineering.

Unlike many universities, CU Boulder views “getting technology out the door” as part of its mission. According to the latest report from the Association of University Technology Managers, which assessed startup creation by universities in 2021, CU ranked fifth nationwide, ahead of Stanford and MIT.

The NAI has ranked the CU system 14th among the “Top 100” institutions nationwide for recent patent activity, reflecting the strength of CU-led discoveries and their potential to be translated into society-benefiting technologies with the support of CU’s robust entrepreneurial ecosystem.