Arizona State University (ASU) is granted $1m to create a university venture capital fund for its start-ups and spin-outs.
Arizona State University (ASU) has received $1m from the Maricopa County Industrial Development Authority (MCIDA), a state-backed job creation organisation, to create a university venture capital fund.
ASU will use the fund to invest in companies which have passed through the university’s accelerator programmes, offering a new avenue of early-stage investment to its start-ups and spin-outs.
The fund will operate as an evergreen fund, with proceeds from investments channelled back into future companies. It will; look to take small equity positions in companies, with investments typically ranging from between $50,000 and $250,000. The university’s Entrpreneurship and Innovation Group and its tech transfer unit Arizona Technology Enterprises, which collaborated with the ASU Foundation on the creation of the fund, will be the two bodies responsible for selecting companies for investment.
ASU has an eventual goal of raising $10m for the fund.
Rick Shangraw, chief executive of the ASU Foundation, said, “This fund is the next step in ASU’s evolution of the knowledge enterprise model. We are able to advance entrepreneurship through our ASU accelerators — the Furnace Technology Transfer Accelerator, the ASU Start-up Accelerator and the Edson Student Entrepreneur Initiative — then support the results with venture capital that will allow them to expand and achieve.”
