Stories of Technology, Innovation, & Entrepreneurship in the Southeast

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August 03, 2023 | Tom Ballard

U News | Vanderbilt-related start-up wins “BIP Ventures’ Startup Showdown”

The University of Arkansas' Startup Village in Fayetteville has been so successful that it has spawned a second location in Bentonville.

From Vanderbilt University:

Bloom Health, a start-up working to improve the future of women’s health, was recently named the winner of “BIP Ventures’ Startup Showdown.” The company, led by Co-Founder and Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management MBA candidate Julia Schuller, will receive a $120,000 investment prize and access to a wide variety of resources and opportunities as a full-fledged member of the BIP Ventures portfolio.

She partnered with her doctor, Danielle Millerto launch Bloom Health as a public benefit corporation in May 2023. The start-up’s mission is to improve standards for women’s health by providing women around the world with access to reproductive education. The company’s flagship product identifies a woman’s fertile window through use of a proprietary algorithm.  

Bloom Health is part of the Launch Incubator at the Wond’ry, Vanderbilt’s Innovation Center.

From the University of Arkansas:

The University’s Startup Village in Fayetteville has been so successful it’s spawned a second location in Bentonville. Known as Startup Village North, it will offer two dozen hot desk workstations, six high-top seats, and two conference rooms that seat up to four guests, with membership including access to The Collaborative’s free parking, Wi-Fi and a self-service kitchenette.

“Opening a second location was motivated by our team’s desire to make free workspace more accessible to entrepreneurs from across our region and introduce them to the resources available at The Collaborative,” said Zoe Buonaiuto, Associate Director of Entrepreneurship Initiatives in the Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. “We’ve received several applications since” announcing Startup Village North at the end of June and “are currently onboarding teams in the space.”

The original Startup Village, now known as Startup Village South, opened in 2019 in the historic Hathcock building at the corner of Block Avenue and Dickson Street. It shares space with the Arkansas Small Business and Technology Development Center at the University and provides reservable desk and office space, as well as shared services, including a conference room, kitchen, printer, Wi-Fi, phones and mailboxes.

From the University of Chicago:

Eleven entities with roots in the Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation or the University of Chicago have been named to an annual list spotlighting the 50 hottest innovators in the city. The list is the ninth edition of Chicago Inno’s Fire Awards that recognize 50 companies and organizations making their mark on the city’s tech scene. Inno Fire awardees were sourced by nominations and selected by the Chicago Inno editorial team.

The 11 include six under the classification of accelerators, venture capital firms, incubators, and programs. They are: (1) The 81 Collection, an early stage venture firm focused on investing in “hard industries” ; (2) Arch Venture Partners, co-founded by three Chicago Booth alums; (3) Argonne National Laboratory; (4) Chan Zuckerberg Biohub; (5) Lofty Ventures that helps people in the Chicago ecosystem become angel investors; and (6) Polsky Deep Tech Ventures launched earlier this year to offer sector-specific accelerators, entrepreneurial, training, and funding for start-ups. The remaining five are start-ups.

From the University of New Mexico:

It has a very unique name intended to describe its focus. The Lobo Rainforest, housed in a six-story building specifically designed to anchor a seven-acre innovation site, functions as a rainforest by hosting activities that enhance entrepreneurship through unpredictable interactions. Having recently celebrated its fifth anniversary, Lobo Rainforest now offers a model — as well as some vital insights — for other cities seeking to jump-start the unscripted interactions of an innovation rainforest.

Located midway between downtown Albuquerque and the University of New Mexico (UNM) campus, the ground floor of Lobo Rainforest is home to UNM Rainforest Innovations, Cecchi VentureLab (UNM Rainforest Innovations’ incubator), UNM Innovation Academy (a UNM student program to stimulate creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship), Sandia National Laboratories’ tech engagement office, and te offices of global engineering firm General Atomics. Floors two through six provide housing and amenities for 310 UNM students. 

Click here to learn more.

From Mississippi State University:

Mississippi State University (MSU) is building on a long-standing partnership with the Vicksburg-based U.S. Army Engineering Research and Development Center with a new initiative designed to support the development and growth of Vicksburg area technology companies, thanks to new funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA).

With $650,000 in funding last year along with $1 million from the Mississippi legislature, MSU established a presence at the Senator Thad Cochran Mississippi Center for Information and Technology in Vicksburg, commonly known as MCITy. Now, the university has been named a Stage One winner for the SBA’s “2023 Growth Accelerator Fund Competition,” providing an additional $50,000 cash prize to support the launch, growth and scale of research and development-focused small businesses.

MSU’s presence at MCITy includes an office for the Center for Entrepreneurship and Outreach, as well as the Office of Technology Management. As part of a state-funded program, MSU and fellow Mississippi Research Consortium universities are enhancing technology transfer and entrepreneurial programs related to federal research taking place in Mississippi.

Click here to learn more.

 



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