Four UNC-affiliated entities join forces to launch the Digital Health Venture Studio
Leaders at four University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill-affiliated entities – the UNC-Chapel Hill Eshelman Institute for Innovation, Innovate Carolina, UNC Health and UNC Research – have come together to pilot an emerging model to accelerate commercialization of ideas.
The model is the venture studio which combines a company-building function (ideation and concept validation, business model design, and founder recruitment) with a source of initial capital, providing speed, financial advantage and functional support to emerging start-ups at launch and in their initial growth period.
In the case of the UNC partners, the effort is focused on digital health and located in the Digital Health Venture Studio at the Eshelman Institute for Innovation and has engaged High Alpha Innovation, a successful implementer of venture studios. In this article in WRAL TechWire, High Alpha’s Elliott Parker says, “A venture studio de-risks the company’s ability to raise capital, access talent and get traction in the market with customers via combining a build team with a source of a capital venture fund.”
