Jack Mason has begun work as chief operating officer of University of Wyoming’s new Institute of Innovation and Entrepreneurship, aiding efforts to strengthen entrepreneurial systems.

Kentucky’s public higher education institutions have joined forces for a commercialisation drive part funded by a $1.2m grant from state-run entrepreneurship hub KY Innovation.

Jon Darsee will oversee an economic development strategy at University of Iowa now separated from the office of the vice-president for research.

The seed funding will support CMU spinout RoadBotics’ automated road inspection platform already used by 78 clients in the US and Australia.

M Ventures led a series A round for UNC's RNA therapy spinout, while Amgen, Illumina, AbbVie and Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma also took part.

University of Louisville Foundation alleges its spinout pharmacogenetics spinout PGxL was unable to repay a loan it had guaranteed after the business fell into bankruptcy.

Kebotix has emerged from Harvard University with backing from investors including Baidu to commercialise an automated approach to discovering new materials and molecules.

USC Marshall Venture Fund supplied an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding for talent booking platform Engage, which was founded by two USC students.

Backed by Stanford-Start X Fund and a trio of corporates, Poynt has now received more than $128m in total for its payment processing terminal and software business.

Memory technology supplier and New York University spinout Spin Memory has secured $52m in a round featuring Applied Ventures and Arm.