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.

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

Pearse Coyle worked with Innovate UK to upgrade their pre-accelerator programme ICURe and teach would-be founders to raise cash early.

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.

Universities are pushing their faculty to be more entrepreneurial but there is a real cost, Harvard researcher Maria Roche argues.

Japan's sophisticated network of university investment funds make it an outlier among other Asian countries.