The UC Davis Venture Catalyst Biotech Innovation Gallery (BIG) startup showcase, held in San Francisco’s Weinstein Gallery on January 9, marked the culmination of the BIG Accelerator program, which provided targeted business plan development, mentoring, and a range of resources, to 21 UC Davis-associated biotech startups. Startups that participated are being supported by Venture Catalyst through its Smart Toolkit for Accelerated Research Translation (START ^TM) program. Through the BIG Accelerator, approximately 85 hours of mentoring and training were provided to participating startups over a 3-month period with dedicated engagement around IP and regulatory strategy as well as coaching on business models, market fit and investment pitches.

The showcase event was held in held in San Francisco at the Weinstein Gallery at Union Square during the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference and offered a platform for UC Davis innovators and entrepreneurs to showcase their emerging biotech companies and connect with industry experts, potential strategic partners, and investors. During the day, at the Venture Catalyst BIG Open House, also held at the Weinstein Gallery, BIG Accelerator participants took part in more than 65 one-on-one meetings with investors and potential strategic partners using dedicated meeting space in the venue and, in the evening, the startups had the opportunity to network with over 180 invited guests who attended the pitch event and reception. In addition, ten of the startups participating in the BIG Accelerator program were selected by the Venture Catalyst team and industry mentors to provide elevator pitches and were provided with a dedicated interaction space to have focused discussions with potential investors and partners.

Venture Catalyst also worked with partners to integrate videos, descriptions, and contact information for the 10 showcase startups on the Envent platform to enable follow-up and broader investor engagement. To access the UC Davis section of the Envent platform, please visit the following site and use access code ucdvc.

https://www.enventglobal.com/venturecatalyst

The BIG Accelerator program and showcase event were enabled by funding from the UC Innovation & Entrepreneurship Expansion Bill with additional support from Squire Patton Boggs and FrinJ Coffee.

For more photos from the BIG event, click here

Featuring:

This panel discussion, featuring two successful UC Davis innovators and entrepreneurs, will provide insights from their experiences in building startup companies enabled by technologies developed at the university. The panelists will discuss what they learned from their journeys with Chirp Mircosystems and Aeroseal and provide advice for aspiring innovators and entrepreneurs. Chirp Microsystems, a startup commercializing high-performance ultrasonic sensors, was recently acquired by TDK Corporation and Aeroseal, a company focused on duct sealing technology, was acquired several years ago by Carrier (part of the UTC Climate, Controls & Security unit of United Technologies Corp.).

WHEN:

Tuesday, February 5, 2019, 11:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.

WHERE:

Join us for lunch @

UC Davis Office of Research

1850 Research Park Drive

Davis, CA 95618

For more information and to register, visit:

https://successfuluniversitystartups.eventbrite.com

Come learn from the experiences of four UC Davis startups that have participated in the IndieBio accelerator program and engage with two of program’s leaders. The IndieBio life science accelerator is based at the heart of biotech, medical, and bio-engineering innovation in San Francisco, offering selected teams access to lab space, seed funding, dedicated mentorship, and potential investors and partners.

Plant biologists at UC Davis have discovered a way to make crop plants replicate through seeds as clones. The discovery, long sought by plant breeders and geneticists, could make it easier to propagate high-yielding, disease-resistant or climate-tolerant crops and make them available to the world’s farmers. The ability to produce a clone, an exact replica, of a plant from its seeds would be a major breakthrough for world agriculture. Instead of purchasing expensive hybrid seeds each year, which is often beyond the means of farmers in developing countries, farmers could replant seeds from their own hybrid plants and derive the benefits of high yields year after year. The researchers published their findings in the journal Nature.... Read More

Hundreds of new genes linked to blindness and other vision disorders have been identified in a screen of mouse strains. Many of these genes are likely important in human eye vision and the results could help identify new causes of hereditary blindness in patients. The results are the latest to come from the International Mouse Phenotyping Consortium, of which UC Davis’ Mouse Biology Program is a founding member. The goal of the consortium is to identify a function for every gene in the mouse genome, by creating lines of “knockout” mice that lack a single specific gene and screening them for their effects. Consortium researchers have previously identified a set of genes essential to life, genes linked to deafness and even those linked to hereditary bad breath.... Read More

The Almond Board of California, which has invested $80 million in research over the past 45 years, has recently committed to nearly $7 million in research investments for 2019; a portion of these funds will be directed to UC Davis, which is currently working on the cultivation of insects as a food source for livestock. More specifically, UC Davis is investigating the cultivation of black solider fly larvae on the fibrous outer hulls of almonds. These hulls, rich in sugar, are often sold as animal feed; by using the hulls as feedstock to farm insect larvae, UC Davis hopes to utilize the larvae as a nutrient-rich food for poultry and aquaculture.... Read More

Thanks to a $265,000 Multi-campus Research Programs and Initiatives (MRPI) grant from the University of California Office of the President (UCOP), Brittany Dugger, assistant professor in-residence at the UC Davis Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, will lead a team of researchers to organize and digitize representative microscope slides of dementia and Alzheimer’s disease from brain banks at UC Davis, UC Irvine and UCLA to generate reference materials of common pathologies found within the brains of subjects with dementia for educational, consultation and research purposes.... Read More

About Venture Catalyst 

 

UC Davis Venture Catalyst facilitates the translation of University research and technology by enabling the development of new ventures. Venture Catalyst engages with the Davis and Sacramento business, governmental and economic development community to highlight the development of technologies and ventures coming out of UC Davis that will drive tomorrow’s regional job creation. Working closely with these partners, Venture Catalyst is invigorating the technology-based entrepreneurial ecosystem of the entire region. 

The Venture Catalyst START™ Suite of programs and services provides the ABCs to equip UC Davis entrepreneurs with the tools they need to form and grow robust startups. The program gives founders the START they need to create a well-structured company and ensure the company is prepared for success. 

 

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