News round up 5 March 2018

The important difference between features and benefits
Jennie Flint, commercialisation associate at Cambridge Enterprise, considers the difference between the features of a technology and its benefits.

Insead fashions Luxury Tech Fund partnership
The business school hopes the partnership will strengthen the ecosystem, leveraging its faculty, program participants and alumni network for the initiative.

CureApp attends to $14m round
Partly based on Keio University research, CureApp has developed mobile apps to help treat nicotine addiction and fatty liver inflammation.

Kuemmerle moves into RFU’s neighbourhood
Steven Kuemmerle will act as a special advisor and will work on the delivery of RFU’s new $50m innovation and research park due in 2019.

Quentis wins $48m from series A quest
Quentis, an immuno-oncology therapy developer based on research at Weill Cornell Medicine, has closed a round that included Taiho Pharmaceuticals and AbbVie Ventures.

Inscripta details series C funding
Mérieux Développement has co-led a $55.5m round for Inscripta, a gene-editing technology developer based on research at University of Colorado, Boulder.

Botanisol Analytics appears on UA’s spectrum
Botanisol Analytics is designing a materials-focused spectrometer to help satisfy safety concerns in the growing US markets for hemp and marijuana.

Virtualitics projects $7m onto series B
Based on research conducted at Caltech and Nasa, Virtualitics has now raised more than $11m in funding for its VR data visualisation and analytics platform.

IDQ decrypts $65m investment
SK Telecom has committed $65m to ID Quantique, a quantum cryptography technology spinout from University of Geneva, adding to $2m it had previously provided.

Florida restructures commercialisation efforts
University of Florida has launched UF Innovate, which will act as an umbrella organisation for the institution’s tech licensing and ventures units as well as two incubators.

Okogen eyes $10m series A
The Medical Research Commercialisation Fund has supplied series A capital to Okogen as the company partners University of Sydney to develop a treatment for viral conjunctivitis.

Khaled leaves UniQuest
Maher Khaled, who managed intellectual property arising from medical research at University of Queensland, has joined Preveceutical Medical as director of international operations.

Santerre takes on commercialisation role at Toronto
Paul Santerre, professor at the Faculty of Dentistry, has been named Baxter chair of health technology and commercialisation.

UAF launches incubator
The Center for Innovation, Commercialization and Entrepreneurship at University of Alaska Fairbanks has welcomed an initial cohort of five spinouts.

Prokarium closes $10m series B
King Saud University’s venture capital arm Riyadh Valley Company has led a $10m series B round for Prokarium, which has developed a vaccine delivery platform.

House Fund to remodel with $50m
The UC Berkeley-affiliated House Fund is seeking up to $50m for its second vehicle, after closing a $6m fund in 2016.

SetSquared and DMZ share top spot
UBI Global has announced the winners of its global incubator benchmark, with SetSquared retaining number one but this time sharing the position with DMZ.

SkyDeck reaches $24m fundraising heights
UC Berkeley’s startup accelerator SkyDeck has closed an oversubscribed fund at $24m, with limited partners including Sequoia Capital and Mayfair Venture Capital.

Deal net: 26 February – 2 March 2018
The Global University Venturing deal net rounds up all the latest smaller deals and tracks emerging companies accessing university funds.