Source: Curt Woodward, Xconomy, February 8, 2012.
When the University of Washington hired Michael Young to be its new president last year, one qualification that stood out was an impressive record of spinning out companies from his previous employer, the University of Utah.
Today, the UW is taking a step toward fulfilling some of that promise by opening its New Ventures Facility, an incubator offering lab and office space for startups based on the school’s research. The incubator will be run by the university’s Center for Commercialization, which recently topped off a $25 million fund for spinning out public university research.
Tech startup incubators have been erupting across the American business landscape in the past few years, as faster, cheaper, more powerful software and hardware makes it very inexpensive to start a new company and investors look for ways to place broader bets on a crop of entrepreneurs. Seattle has a branch of the prominent TechStars program, which is also partnering with Microsoft to organize a separate accelerator program for startups working on the Kinect motion and sound sensor.
Curt Woodward is senior editor at Xconomy Seattle.