Innosphere, Colorado’s incubator program dedicated to accelerating the success of science and technology-based companies, recently the 10 startups and scaleups selected for its spring 2019 cohort, three of which hail from CU Boulder.
Big Blue Technologies and TissueForm developed their innovations in a CU Boulder lab, while New Iridium was founded jointly with Colorado State University (CSU).
Jeanne Barthold, CU Boulder engineering PhD student and TissueForm co-founder, speaks with Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) President Peter McPherson at the University Innovation & Entrepreneurship Showcase in Washington D.C. on April 11, 2019.
Big Blue Technologies
Big Blue Technologies (BBT), founded in 2015 out of Al Weimer's lab in CU Boulder's Department of Chemical and Biological Engineering, discovered a new operating paradigm for the condensation and collection of magnesium metal. BBT is making magnesium production clenaer and more efficient and plans to build the third largest magnesium metal production facility in North America.
In working with Venture Partners at CU Boulder, BBT holds an exclusive license on several patent applications. The company is also an alumni of CU Boulder's university’s startup accelerator, Catalyze CU.
New Iridium
New Iridium produces low-cost and high-performance organic photoredox catalysts (PCs) for use in pharmaceutical drug development and manufacturing as well as other chemical industries. Cost-effective organic PCs will make photoredox catalysis feasible for a wide range of pharmaceutical R&D and manufacturing applications. The technology was developed in the Miyake lab, jointly with CU Boulder and CSU.
New Iridum was also selected to pitch at the inaugural Destination Startup - a collaboration among Colorado's leading research universities and federal laboratories, hosted by Venture Partners, that showcased the best technologies from the region’s innovation ecosystem.
TissueForm
Developed in the Mechanical Engineering Department's Neu Soft Tissue Bioengineering Lab, TissueForm's ClayMatrix™ technology helps patients suffering from tissue disease, damage or aging. The dermal fillers are low-cost and long-lasting, dramatically decreasing the number of repeat injections a patient must receive to maintain his or her desired appeearance.
TissueForm has utilized several resources from CU Boulder's innovation ecosystem to advance the company closer to commercialization. The team partipated in CU Boulder's 2019 New Venture Challenge competition, winning the Research & Development (R&D) Track ($6,000), the Women's Entrepreneurship Prize and third place ($12,500) at the NVC 11 Championships. They also competed in Venture Partners' first-ever Lab Venture Challenge in 2018, winning $125,000 in grant funding and first place in the Biosciences category.
To learn more about how the university helps foster innovative startups like these, visit Venture Partners at CU Boulder.
