Global University Venturing

The US university recently created an office of innovation as part of a drive to commercialise more of the research coming out of its labs.

Mart Maasik has stepped down as chief executive of UniTartu Ventures at the University of Tartu to join a $63 spinout investment fund.

Vincent Coole, who built a programme University of Birmingham programme to commercialise technology before creating a spinout, has joined Trinity College Dublin.

The university is the latest academic institution in the Asian country to launch an investment fund to support spinouts.

The UK university has set up physical presence in San Francisco to be closer to US investors and companies it seeks to partner with.

The students have faced a three-year journey to raise money for the planned $1m venture fund.

The universities of Durham, Newcastle, Northumbria, Sunderland and Teesside are the latest group of academic institutions in the UK to launch a fund to invest in their spinouts.

While universities often push their academics to be more entrepreneurial, having a professor lead a spinout decreases its chances of raising money and being acquired, according to research by Harvard associate professor Maria Roche.

SETsquared's investment vehicle will fund companies that are spun out of the universities of Bath, Bristol, Cardiff, Exeter, Southampton and Surrey.

The Danish university's VC subsidiary, PSV Foundry, set up the fund to investment in environmental sustainability companies.

The US university has created a new office to coordinate its efforts to expand the startup ecosystem in its base of New Jersey and the broader region.