CU Startup News
CU Boulder Innovation & Entrepreneurship Initiative—The 2025 New Venture Challenge (NVC) culminated in a final showcase on April 23 with a live audience cheering on the University of Colorado Boulder’s next exciting innovations. At an event filled with big ideas and even bigger entrepreneurial spirit, six teams competed for a record $325,000.
Albuquerque Journal—CU Boulder startup Mesa Quantum is commercializing its quantum sensors, which target more robust position, navigation and timing applications in miniaturized atomic clocks. It’s now one step closer to that goal.
Manus Bio—Manus, the proven bioalternatives scale-up platform, and Inscripta, a CU Boulder spinout and leading life science technology company helping to create the bioeconomy, today announced a strategic merger to establish a unique end-to-end platform for scalable development, biomanufacturing, and commercialization of bioalternative products.
Infleqtion’s star continues to rise as Colorado’s quantum hub grows. The company of firsts, spun out of CU Boulder as ColdQuanta, seems to be everywhere these days, including outer space, while commercializing pioneering research to address needs across several critical markets including positioning, navigating and timing, global communication security and efficiency, resilient energy distribution, and accelerated quantum computing.
CO-WY Climate Resilience Engine—The CO-WY Engine accelerator program accelerates the commercial pathways and company growth of early-stage startups using digital twins as a key aspect of their solution. CU Boulder startup BioSensor Solutions is dedicated to transforming agriculture and mitigating environmental degradation by developing cost-effective, high-performance sensor systems.
Venture Partners at CU Boulder and its partners across the Intermountain West once again demonstrated the power of university innovations with back-to-back startup showcases for the Embark Deep Tech Startup Creator and Destination Startup. Both provided a platform for cutting-edge startups, breakthrough research and high-growth potential ventures to connect with industry leaders and investors.
Coloradan Magazine—CU Boulder’s researchers are bringing innovations out of their labs and into companies that have real-world impact. The university is a national leader and spinout powerhouse, launching 35 companies in fiscal year 2024 and over 100 since 2016, according to Bryn Rees, associate vice chancellor for innovation and partnerships.
Mesa Quantum, a CU Boulder spinout and leader in quantum sensing, recently announced $3.7 million in seed funding and a $1.9 million grant from SpaceWERX, the innovation arm of the U.S. Space Force. Both investments are fueling the company’s drive toward commercializing chip-scale quantum sensors for multiple applications including next-generation position, navigation and timing solutions.
PR Newswire—Artimus Robotics, a CU Boulder startup and leader in artificial muscle technology, announced £1.5M funding from the UK government's Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA). This contract will enable crucial advancements in Artimus Robotics' core soft actuation technology and support deploying this technology into dexterous manipulators in collaboration with the University of Bristol.
Daily Camera—CU Boulder’s commercialization, including startup companies, had an economic impact of $8 billion nationally and $5.2 billion in Colorado from 2018-2022, according to a 2022 report from CU Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. Ball Aerospace was one of the first startup companies out of CU Boulder. Another is Solid Power, which creates electric vehicle batteries and other components and has partnered with Ford and BMW.