As we all know, the creation, care and feeding of academic startups is a high profile aspect of what we do as academic licensing professionals. For this reason, new company creation, funding, and governance have become a core part of the AUTM educational program for quite a while. At the 2011 Annual Meeting, we are taking a bold step forward to celebrate our involvement and dedication to the venture portion of our profession by rolling out an exciting new initiative – the inaugural AUTM Venture Forum.
The Venture Forum is comprised of start up Venture Pitch Competition, followed by venture capital Panel Discussion. We will be soliciting Executive Summaries at the end of October from academic / research institution-affiliated start up companies interested in participating in the Venture Pitch Competition – so keep an eye out for this in the next AUTM blast – your involvement will be crucial to the success of this program. We are also looking for volunteers to review Executive Summaries / company plans for the competition, so let me know if you are interested.
The solicitation will provide details on qualifications to partake in the Venture Forum, and will give other details such as important dates, the selection process, finalists benefits, etc. In short, eligible companies must be looking for funding, must be pre-series A, must be generally in the healthcare space, must have a non-inventor manager giving the pitch, and must have a license (or option to license) from an academic institution (university, research hospital, research institute or government laboratory). Applicants need only to submit a not-to-exceed 8 page Executive Summary, so the barrier is reasonably low, but the time table is short – applications must be in by December 1. Travel, hotel and conference registration for finalists will be paid by AUTM, and the first place company will receive a cash prize and positive press. It will be an educational experience for all participants and attendees.
On a side note, people have asked “why healthcare?” Well, in putting together the venture panel, it became clear that the panelists/judges wanted to only see plans in their area of expertise and investment interests, so we had to pick a sector, and healthcare was the most logical choice, as we already had a few VC commitments in that area. We hope to expand the Venture Pitch Competition to other sectors in years to come.