The Insider: Researchers, Inventors and Creators Edition—October 2025
Special Announcements
Get a front-row seat to the University of Colorado's next big ideas competing for $750,000
Eleven teams of University of Colorado entrepreneurs, faculty researchers and graduate student innovators will compete for a combined $750,000 in startup funding grants in this year’s Lab Venture Challenge (LVC) Showcases at the Dairy Arts Center. Judges from Venture Partners at CU Boulder’s entrepreneurial network will hear Shark Tank-style pitches across two nights, one for innovations in biosciences and another for physical sciences and engineering.
CU Boulder ranked No. 1 for launching startups based on university discoveries
The University of Colorado Boulder reached a historic milestone, launching 35 new companies based on university intellectual property during fiscal year 2024, more than any other U.S. campus that year. In addition to holding the No. 1 spot for that year, the achievement also places CU Boulder No. 2 for the most startups launched in a single year by a U.S. campus.
Support for University Innovators
Protect your discoveries before you publish them
As a researcher, creator or inventor at the University of Colorado, your work has the potential to change the world. Protecting these innovations may be necessary to ensure that they reach their full potential, benefiting society while securing recognition and opportunities for you.
Featured News
Infleqtion to go public with $1.8B valuation making it CU Boulder’s 10th unicorn spinout
Infleqtion, a CU Boulder spinout and global leader in quantum technology, announced a $1.8 billion business combination with Churchill Capital Corp X and will trade under the ticker “INFQ.” Now Colorado’s tenth unicorn, Infleqtion continues to drive the state’s growing quantum hub by commercializing breakthroughs across computing, sensing, security and energy markets.
Watch: A quantum-based breathalyzer for early disease detection
CUbit Quantum Initiative—Entrepreneur Eva Yao discusses how the Nobel Prize-winning frequency comb technology from the lab of Jun Ye (Physics, JILA, NIST) can rapidly detect very small molecules in human breath, potentially enabling early disease detection and improved patient outcomes.
AI helps spot 1,000 “questionable” journals
Technology Networks—Daniel Acuña, a CU Boulder computer scientist and founder of CU Boulder startup ReviewerZero, led development of an AI tool that analyzed ~15,200 open-access journals and flagged roughly 1,400 as potentially problematic, with over 1,000 confirmed to exhibit questionable publishing practices.
New experimental tool can predict potential wildfires on an hourly basis
Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES)—CIRES and NOAA scientists have developed the Hourly Wildfire Potential Index (HWP)—an hourly updated assessment of wildfire risk across every nine square kilometers of land. The tool enhances existing weather prediction models by providing more accurate, real-time forecasts of wildfire activity and associated smoke emissions.