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2023 was another tremendous year for innovation at the University of Colorado Boulder. Campus researchers and inventors created a strong crop of 162 breakthrough technologies this past year. These spanned the breadth of CU Boulder’s research expertise, with innovations in climate tech, biotechnology, quantum science, optics and aerospace, to name a few. CU Boulder's commercialization arm, Venture Partners at CU Boulder, supports a groundbreaking pipeline translating research into real-world impact, as highlighted in their 2023 Annual Report.

Venture Partners at CU Boulder is seeking a Venture Fellow to help commercialize university innovations and create new startup companies. The Venture Fellow position is a time-limited fellowship with a 2-year duration. This is an excellent opportunity for anyone wanting to break into the exciting innovation ecosystem in Boulder, Colorado. Previous Venture Fellows have translated their fellowships into positions in venture capital and university innovation.

The 2024 New Venture Challenge (NVC) culminated in a final showcase on April 17 in front of a live audience cheering on the University of Colorado Boulder’s next big innovations. At an event filled with great ideas and even greater entrepreneurial spirit, five teams competed for $165,000 in prize money.

CU Independent—Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder are working to make the moon habitable. And they are focused on one of the most difficult challenges to lunar living: dust. Xu Wang, a research scientist at the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at CU Boulder, was one of the winners of NASA’s 2023 Entrepreneurs Challenge.

Popular Mechanics—Scientists from CU Boulder have created an atomic clock using lasers and strontium atoms that is incredibly accurate—only losing one second every 40 billion years. Roughly twice as accurate as the previous record holder, this clock could (theoretically) tick with accurate time for nearly three times the universe's age.

College of Arts & Sciences—A group of seven physics students, staff, and faculty were recently awarded funding from the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Innovation Fund for their proposal to improve undergraduate research for underrepresented and minority groups in STEM disciplines. The grant will support two key initiatives including an undergraduate research expo and a research fellowship fund.

The Intermountain West innovation ecosystem came together at the sixth annual Destination Startup Investor Showcase hosted by Venture Partners at CU Boulder. In a highly competitive field, twenty-two select ventures from the region’s research institutions presented at the showcase.

The New Venture Challenge (NVC) and Deming Center for Entrepreneurship teamed up to present the NVC Women Founders competition, awarding $10,000 to groundbreaking new ventures.

The New Venture Challenge (NVC) and Venture Partners at CU Boulder teamed up to present the NVC Deep Tech competition, awarding $53,000 to groundbreaking new ventures.

SciTechDaily—JILA's (a joint institute established by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder) breakthrough in optical atomic clocks uses quantum entanglement to surpass fundamental precision limits, setting a new standard in timekeeping and opening avenues for scientific discovery.