Venture Partners News

We are saying a fond farewell to Stephen Miller, who, after six years with Venture Partners at CU Boulder, is pursuing a new opportunity. We will be welcoming a new director of venture development in the near future, to continue CU Boulder’s trajectory as a premier university for impactful spinout companies.

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.

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. Join our team and participate in bringing breakthrough innovations from the university to the world!

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-three select ventures from the region’s research institutions presented at the showcase.

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.

Venture Partners at CU Boulder and the university’s Industry and Foundation Relations (IFR) team brought together dozens of stakeholders in the renewable energy and storage ecosystem to discuss innovations, issues and opportunities in the vibrant sector.

The National Academy of Inventors (NAI) has ranked the CU system 14th among the “Top 100” institutions nationwide for recent patent activity. That prominent position reflects the strength of CU-led discoveries and their potential to be translated into society-benefiting technologies with the support of CU’s robust entrepreneurial ecosystem.

LongPath is harnessing quantum technology to detect methane emissions from oil and gas operations, innovation that benefits industry and investors—and the planet. Most recently, LongPath received landmark financial backing from the Department of Energy (DOE) for a loan of up to $189 million to accelerate the scale-up of the company’s monitoring systems.

CU Boulder Today—The National Science Foundation today announced the Colorado-Wyoming Climate Resilience Engine (CO-WY Engine) as a recipient of its inaugural Regional Innovation Engines program. The prestigious award totals up to $160 million over 10 years and positions the CO-WY Engine at the forefront of the nation's environmental and climate technology initiatives.

The Embark program pairs seasoned entrepreneurs with university technologies to bring those breakthroughs to market in response to urgent societal needs. The recent Embark Showcase was the pinnacle of the program’s first year working with selected entrepreneurs to provide IP rights, salary support, grant funds and investor introductions to launch startups with real-world impact.