Deshpande Center Spawns Nine Companies – So Far – What is your University doing?

I’ve written enthusiastically about the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation at MIT http://web.mit.edu/deshpandecenter/index.html in the past. I think it’s an awesome example of a university program http://web.mit.edu/deshpandecenter/about.html that funds novel, early-stage research, connects innovators with the business creation infrastructure – including VCs and entrepreneurs – and actively helps new startups to be created out of fundamental early stage research.

As the Deshpande Center enters their fourth grant cycle, they just released the data on what happened with research teams that they have funded to date.

* 44 teams have been funded since 2002

* $4.9m of grant money has been awarded

* 9 companies have been formed

* $23m of angel and first round VC funding has occurred

* 7 other teams are forming new companies and actively raising money

Feld Thoughts

Full Story:
http://www.feld.com/blog/archives/2005/08/deshpande_cente.html

(Thanks to John Masterson of Modwest for passing this along. – Russ)