Community Impact

CU Boulder professor Nathan Schneider, B Corp investment advisor Brian Lichtenheld and tech entrepreneur Quinn Antus recently led a community discussion as part of the Boulder Forum on Economy, Climate and Community. The third event in the six-part series focused on distributive and regenerative economy. The panelists presented their thoughts on how Boulder, and cities like it, can build a more just, equal and sustainable economy.

SBIR and STTR grants are highly competitive programs that encourage research by small U.S. businesses with the aim of putting innovative, profitable products on the market. The STTR program also requires small businesses to collaborate with nonprofit research institutions such as CU Boulder.

Logan County Economic Development Corporation and Leeds School of Business at The University of Colorado Boulder hosted a business workshop called “Demystifying Entrepreneurship – StartUp to ScaleUp” this past weekend on July 16-17. Back for the third of five years and taught by award-winning faculty members at CU’s Leeds School of Business, Deming Center for Entrepreneurship, Erick Mueller and Hunter Albright, this year’s program was geared towards individuals wanting to shift out of the startup phase and into “what’s next”.

VitriVax, a CU Boulder spinout that is a developer of a novel stabilization and delivery platform for vaccines and therapeutics, today announced it has closed its first institutional financing round with Adjuvant Capital. VitraVax's Atomic Layering Thermostable Antigen and Adjuvant (ALTA™) technology platform is designed to enable the development of vaccines that can be transported and stored without complex refrigeration and temperature monitoring requirements.

New ways to fight the economic and social devastation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic are being born and raised at universities in the Boulder Valley and Northern Colorado. Technology-transfer and accelerator entities at the University of Colorado Boulder and Colorado State University in Fort Collins are helping them get the entrepreneurial support they need to hasten them to market.

CU Boulder spinouts Ezalife, Hive Tech Solutions, and Mosaic received a total of $1 million in grants from the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade (OEDIT)'s Advanced Industries Accelerator (AIA) Grant Program. A total of $8,567,756 was approved this grant cycle for Proof of Concept and Early-Stage Capital and Retention Grants to support Colorado’s advanced industries.

The Southern Ute Tribe, Fort Lewis College and The University of Colorado-Boulder Leeds School of Business Deming Center for Entrepreneurship will host the virtual inaugural Native Entrepreneurship workshop May 21 and 22. The workshop will be taught by Erick Mueller and Visda Carson, entrepreneurs and award-winning professors at the Leeds School of Business.

Continuing what has been a busy year for the startup, Boulder-based ColdQuanta has brought on $20 million to help commercialize its quantum computing technology. The investment brings ColdQuanta’s total funding to $74 million and comes from existing investors including Foundry Group, Global Frontier Quantum Opportunity Fund, LCP Quantum Partners and Maverick Ventures.

Venture Partners at CU Boulder—the university's commercialization arm—has launched the Pandemic Hyper Accelerator for Science and Technology (PHAST) to support the translation of CU-developed, COVID-19 innovations into new businesses. Crucial to PHAST's programming is the partnership formed with local angel investing group Rockies Venture Club (RVC), as the program requires participants to complete RVC's 1-week HyperAccelerator. PHAST is taking applications through May 21.

Formerly NOHMs Technologies, the company combines proprietary electrolyte with a newly developed silicon anode design for a low-cost, high-performance and safer lithium-ion battery. In commercializing these latest silicon anode technologies, Sionic will collaborate with Mechanical Engineering Professor Sehee Lee’s lab and team of postdocs at the CU Boulder. Over the past decade at the university, Dr. Lee’s team has created a legacy of Li-ion battery innovations that help drive the adoption of energy storage in products and their positive impact on climate change.