CONGRATULATIONS TO OUR THIRD Q GRADUATE

Actinia (Prof. Mercouri Kanatzidis, Weinberg) is our newest graduate from the InQbation Lab. We are grateful for their contribution to the Q community and look forward to their next stage in development.

To become a Q Resident, startups must have an active option or license with Northwestern.

If you are interested, please complete THIS FORM.

Azul 3D (Prof. Chad Mirkin, Weinberg) closed their $15M Series A funding round, facilitating further development and scale-up of their High-Area Rapid technology (HARP). This proprietary capability converts liquid plastic into solid objects using UV lights and keeps the object molecularly flat, allowing for increased scalability and speed. Lead investors include DuPont, Beta Lab, and GS Futures. Read more

Flashpoint Therapeutics (Prof. Chad Mirkin, Weinberg), raised a $10M Seed round led by Beta Lab. This funding will advance their nanotherapeutic candidates in oncology and other discovery programs. Read more

Rhaeos (Prof. John Rogers, McCormick) received a $1.5M Blueprint MedTech grant from the NIH to transform hydrocephalus management. Rhaeos is developing a non-invasive, wireless, and wearable sensor called FlowSense®, which assesses hydrocephalus shunt. Read more

Dimension Inx (Prof. Ramille Shah, formerly McCormick), a biomaterials platform company, announced that CMFlex™was successfully used in its first clinical cases. This is the first 3D-printed regenerative bone graft product with FDA approval. Read more

Actinia (Prof. Mercouri Kanatzidis, Weinberg), is raising $4M in Seed funding to reach production-level manufacturing capacity for their cutting-edge radiation detector materials.

Stemloop (Prof. Julius Lucks, McCormick) is raising $2M in Seed funding to support the commercialization of their first product, µSense for Lead, which utilizes cell-free biosensors.

MFNS-Tech (Prof. Vinayak Dravid, McCormick) is raising $1.2M in Seed funding to support 6+ pilots, scale-up production, and business expansion of their nanostructure coating for oil spill cleanup.

Volexion (Prof. Mark Hersam, McCormick) is finishing a $1.2M Seed Series 2 raise with funding from undisclosed investors to develop, scale up, and commercialize their graphene encapsulation technology for commercial lithium ion cathode materials.

NORTHWESTERN STARTUPS:

To share your fundraising or milestone news, email inqbationlab@northwestern.edu.

INVESTORS:

Contact InQbation Lab directly for more information regarding these investment opportunities.

*NEW* BUSINESS OF SCIENCE SEMINAR SERIES- ENROLLMENT IS OPEN

This 10-week seminar series, running January through March 2024, is designed for Chicago-based postdocs who are interested in entrepreneurship and commercialization of university technologies. Weekly seminars will provide an introduction to business management concepts and methods for research scientists. For more information, VISIT HERE. This series is co-hosted by the Querrey InQbation Lab, The Graduate School (TGS) at Northwestern, and the Chicago Biomedical Consortium.

Space is limited. Applications are due by Friday, November 17.

INAUGURAL EIR PROGRAM CONCLUDED LAST WEEK

The Q Executive-in-Residence program embeds seasoned executives in the Northwestern community for one week. Our first EIR was Ananth Naman, a veteran executive with 20+ years of industry experience in specialty chemical, industrial, and electronic materials, and most recently CTO of Cabot Microelectronics. With a focus on sustainability, he met early career faculty, faculty with projects on the cusp of translation, and startups to provide perspectives and actionable recommendations in their approaches to next steps of derisking and commercialization. Additionally, Ananth met with McCormick Dean Chris Schuh, Trienens Institute Co-Executive Director Ted Sargent, AVP for Innovation & New Ventures Lisa Dhar, as well as INVO staff to provide valuable insight into supporting and advancing Northwestern's innovation and commercialization.

Midweek, Trienens and INVO co-hosted a seminar and networking event. In her talk, The Power of Corporate VC in Sustainability, Ginger Rothrock (Senior Investment Direct, HG Ventures) discussed corporate venture as a driver in sustainability innovation through investment in start-up companies in circular economy, green chemistry, and electrification. Ananth moderated a lengthy and engaged Q&A session. Ginger's talk was so well received that an encore event is currently being scheduled—more information to come.

The next EIR, planned for 2024, will focus on healthcare. For more information, contact Sonia Kim.

CEO ROUNDTABLE KICKOFF IN OCTOBER

In October, the Q hosted its first CEO Roundtable. This program invites Northwestern startup CEOs to discuss various leadership issues with seasoned guest CEOs. The first guest CEO was Ben Hernandez (McC '06, KSM '13, PSL '13), CEO of NuMat Technologies. Adam Goodman (Director, Northwestern's Center for Leadership) moderated the conversation with executive leaders from various NU startups, including Khalid Alam (Stemloop), Kurt Zoller (PreDx), Jay Rosanelli (Syenex), Randa Dumanian (MSi), and Nick Sather (Amphix Bio).

Our next CEO Roundtable is scheduled for Friday, November 10 with Dennis Yang (McC '95), former CEO of Udemy. For more information, contact Sonia Kim.

NM-Q MEDICAL DEVICE STUDIO LAUNCH

Last month, the NM-Q Medical Device Studio awardees, Dr. Bruce Tan (Otolaryngology), Drs. Nicolas Francone/Emi Bretschneider/Ali Borazjani (Obstetrics & Gynecology), Dr. Shilajit Kundu (Urology), and Dr. Ahsun Riaz (Interventional Radiology) were announced. The new program is now underway. Product design engineer Michael Garrett of Transcend Technologies is leading initial kickoff sessions with each clinical team to review and discuss design requirements and better understand considerations for human form, fit and function factors, as well as other details. These discussions will help identify not only gaps in current designs but also the required engineering to finalize a prototype at local design firms.

CHICAGO BIOCAPITAL SUMMIT

Chicago BioCapital Summit will bring together cutting-edge programs and/or startups and connect them with a national audience of VCs. Coordinated by the Chicago Biomedical Consortium, in partnership with Northwestern University, the University of Chicago, and the University of Illinois Chicago, the BioCapital will take place on November 2, 2023 in downtown Chicago. Visit the registration page for more details.

If you have any questions, please visit the Querrey InQbation Lab or email inQbationlab@northwestern.edu.