Notre Dame’s Idea sparks $22m fund

University of Notre Dame’s commercialisation hub, Idea Center, has launched a $22m-plus vehicle called Notre Dame Pit Road Fund with the backing of a group of unnamed investors.
Pit Road Fund, christened to fit Idea Center’s racing car-inspired branding, has been seeded to equip the hub’s emerging businesses and technologies with early-stage capital.
Notre Dame hopes Pit Road will help bridge the funding gap that often impedes an innovation’s path to market. To qualify for funding, projects must have completed Idea Center’s de-risking and validation assessment, which helps scrutinise ideas for their market potential.
Launched in 2017, Idea Center aims to spur greater commercialisation activity led by Notre Dame faculty and students with facilities which include a 55,000 square foot innovation park and a tech transfer initiative called Commercialization Engine.
During 2017-18, the hub spawned a total of 27 spinouts and startups, exceeding its original target of 16 and coming close to the 33 businesses previously generated throughout Notre Dame’s entire history.
Bryan Ritchie, vice-president and associate provost for innovation at Notre Dame, said: “The fund will give promising early-stage Idea Center-vetted projects access to the right amount of capital at the right time. The ability to apply small, light, fast money to these projects makes all the difference in the early stage of de-risking.”