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College of Engineering and Applied Science
Catalyze CU

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Summer 2023 Applications now open - until April 14, 2023

Launching CU Boulder's top ventures

Catalyze CU is a summer-long startup accelerator program designed for CU Boulder ventures created by students, faculty and staff. It combines world class mentorship, funding and a dedicated co-working space to help the most promising ventures from across campus reach escape velocity—without taking any equity.

Summer 2023 Applications now open - until April 14, 2023

Click Here to Apply

Perks

- Equity-Free Funding
- Dedicated Office Space
- Founder Stipends

Mentorship

- Sales and Marketing
- Finance and Legal
- Product Development

Resources

- Prototyping
- Design
- Marketing

Home

Get Involved

specdrums team at demo day

Participate

Catalyze CU teaches student, faculty and staff innovators to level up their founding team's startup skill set by helping them go from idea to impact and prototype to production.

Learn How Catalyze CU Works

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Mentor

Catalyze CU relies on the support of community members to help prepare university startups to thrive once they leave the university. Want to lend your expertise?

Apply to Be a Catalyze CU Mentor

students with mentor at demo day

Support

Catalyze CU would not be possible without the generous contributions of our partners. Interested in supporting CU Boulder innovators and startups?

Partner with Catalyze CU

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Listen

Head over to the official Catalyze CU podcast to gain insight and advice from experienced engineering professionals.

Listen to Catalyze CU

Startup Stories

informu team

informu

informu (2016) was created by the intrepid, hard-working duo of Lang Mei (Leeds, 2017) and Rishabh Berlia (CEAS, 2017). The two international students, from China and India, respectively, joined forces to add Prerna Nayyer (CEAS, 2017), an international student also from India. This team worked tirelessly to address the issue of lost items; those valuables that are accidentally left behind. The Mu tag, their product, connects to a users phone or smart watch and sends a notification when the user is further than a given distance their valuable item. informu staged a successful Kickstarter campaign in spring of 2017 and raised their seed round in December the same year.

stateless team

Stateless

Stateless (2016) was founded by the electrical and computer engineering research team of PhD student Murad Kablan and Assistant Professor Eric Keller. Their revolutionary technology makes even the most sophisticated networks simple to manage. After completing Catalyze CU, they were accepted into Techstars Boulder in the spring of 2017. They were awarded an NSF SBIR grant in the summer of 2017 and by winter of that same year, they had completed their first round of seed funding at $1.4 million. In February of 2019, Stateless announced a Series A financing round of $11.33 million, the most by any Catalyze CU alum to date.

specdrums

Specdrums

Specdrums (2017) was founded in 2015 by Steven Dourmashkin to address his own problem as a lifelong drummer—he wished he could bring his drum set with him everywhere. The result was Specdrums, a wearable ring that allows the user to tap colors to trigger sounds. After assembling Jenna and Jack as co-founders and participating in Catalyze CU, the Specdrums team launched a wildly successful Kickstarter campaign, bringing in almost $190,000 in the fall of 2017. The team competed in, and won, the CU Boulder New Venture Challenge in 2018, and shortly afterwards was acquired by consumer robotics powerhouse Sphero, marking the second acquisition of a Catalyze CU alumni startup.

 

Catalyze CU

Hosted at the Innovation Station
Williams Village Center Dining & Community Commons
Room 108
500 30th Street
Boulder, CO 80309
catalyzecu@colorado.edu

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