Cargill opened its state-of-the-art Innovation Lab at the University of Illinois Research Park. Every day, they connect farmers with markets, customers with ingredients, and people and animals with the food they need to thrive. Side-by-side, they are building a stronger, sustainable future for agriculture. View the grand opening video here.
Cargill Grand Opening Read Post »
Wisconsin-based startup accelerator program gener8tor announced it’s launching two new programs in Champaign that are focused on innovation in the agriculture industry. gener8tor will bring its gBETA accelerator model to Champaign in a program called gBETA AgTech, which will offer early-stage startups a free, seven-week accelerator and a $25,000 investment. The first gBETA AgTech accelerator will begin this summer and is designed to help five young startups gain customer traction and improve their business models. gener8tor also announced it’s launching an annual gener8tor AgTech accelerator that will bring top agriculture-tech startups from across the world to Champaign for a 12-week accelerator program. The program will select five startups who will receive a $100,000 investment and connect with gener8tor’s network of mentors, corporate partners and investors. The startups will also receive office space from gener8tor. Both programs are currently accepting applications. The programs are being run in partnership with Champaign-based VC firm Serra Ventures. The accelerators are also backed by Agri-Fab, Fox Development, GEM Realty Capital, The UIUC Research Park, the University of Illinois and The Champaign County Economic Development Corporation. gener8tor, which is regularly ranked as one of the top accelerators in the U.S. by the Seed Accelerator Rankings Project, has expanded its programs to cities across the country in recent years, including Detroit, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Houston and Los Angeles. The new agtech programs represent the group’s first accelerators in the state of Illinois. “We wanted to design programs that combined the core competencies and network of our Champaign-based corporate partners with a frictionless investment model to attract the best startups from around the world,” Troy Vosseller, co-founder of gener8tor, said in a statement. Read the full article here.
New AgTech Accelerator Launched in Champaign Read Post »
UPDATE: This event has been postponed until Thursday, October 22. More information is available on the SBIR Road Tour website https://www.sbirroadtour.com/. The U.S. Small Business Administration announced today the launch of its 17-state SBIR Road Tour, which includes a stop in Champaign-Urbana on June 3-4, hosted by University of Illinois Research Park at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications. The Road Tour will connect entrepreneurs working on advanced technology to one of the country’s largest source of early stage funding – the Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer programs. “SBA is focused on helping small businesses grow and expand. The $4 billion in federal early stage funding is often a critical piece to maturing an entrepreneur’s research idea into a product or service. The Road Tours bring the federal managers to the entrepreneur and target areas and individuals that are underrepresented when it comes to receiving federal R&D funding,” said SBA Administrator Jovita Carranza. “This tour reflects our continued commitment to ensure those innovators are aware of SBIR/STTR program resources.” This will be the sixth year of the SBIR Road Tour, led by the SBA’s Office of Investment and Innovation together with 11 participating federal agencies. More information, including a detailed agenda and registration, will be released in March. NATIONAL SBIR ROAD TOUR SCHEDULE 2020: The Midwest Tour will run from June 1-5, with stops in Omaha, Nebraska; St. Louis, Missouri; Champaign-Urbana, Illinois, and Bloomington, Indiana. The Southeast Tour will run from April 13-17, with stops in Richmond, Virginia; Raleigh/Durham, North Carolina; Columbia, South Carolina; and Atlanta/Athens, Georgia. The Rockies Tour will run from August 10-14, with stops in Bozeman, Montana; Idaho Falls, Idaho; Salt Lake City, Utah; and Laramie, Wyoming. Finally, the Central Southern Tour will run from November 2-6, with stops in Jackson, Mississippi; Shreveport, Louisiana; Dallas, Texas; Oklahoma City, Oklahoma; and Fayetteville, Arkansas. Small technology firms, innovators, scientists or researchers seeking more information on the SBIR Road Tour, including a schedule of stops and participating agencies should visit: https://www.sbirroadtour.com/. For more information about SBIR/STTR programs, please visit https://www.sbir.gov/. About SBIR/STTRSBA coordinates the SBIR/STTR programs, also known as America’s Seed Fund, which each year provides more than $3.7 billion in early stage seed capital totaling over 5,000 awards to small businesses. Eleven participating federal government agencies announce funding opportunities as either grants or contracts to address their research and development needs. Companies supported by the SBIR/STTR programs often generate some of the most important breakthroughs each year in the U.S. Additional information about the programs, as well as past and current topics can be found at www.sbir.gov. About the U.S. Small Business AdministrationThe U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) was created in 1953 and is a Cabinet-level agency of the federal government to aid, counsel, assist and protect the interests of small business concerns, to preserve free competitive enterprise and to maintain and strengthen the overall economy of our nation. The SBA helps Americans start, build and grow businesses, and recover from disasters. Through an extensive network of field offices and partnerships with public and private organizations, the SBA delivers its services to people throughout the United States, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and Guam. To learn more about SBA, visit www.sba.gov.
SBIR Road Tour to Make Champaign-Urbana Visit in June Read Post »
Champaign, Illinois (February 18, 2020) – The brightest minds in agtech will convene Wednesday, March 4 for the fifth annual AgTech Innovation Summit hosted by the University of Illinois Research Park and presented by Bayer and The Climate Corporation. The AgTech Innovation Summit features a unique mix of investors , large corporations, prominent academics, and startups to provide a well-rounded perspective on the future of AgTech. Attendees will explore how technology solutions are addressing some of the most significant challenges facing agriculture today. “Over the past five years this event has grown from a regional conference to draw national participants from across the ag value chain,” said Laura Frerichs, executive director of the University of Illinois Research Park. “We have seen first-hand how this type of talent in a room together can advance the agtech sector in Champaign-Urbana and well beyond.” Attendees will also hear from industry thought leaders including Cargill’s Chief Technology Officer Keith Narr, Land O’Lakes Chief Technology Officer Teddy Bekele, and The Climate Corporation’s Chief Science Officer Sam Eathington. New this year to the AgTech Summit is the AgTech Showcase and Networking Reception immediately following the event. The AgTech Showcase is an opportunity to connect with Research Park companies, discover innovative technologies, and network with industry leaders. The Showcase is free and open to the public, regardless of attendance at the AgTech Summit; see first-hand how technology is affecting the agricultural industry. The AgTech Summit is programmed by the University of Illinois Research Park in partnership with the Office of Corporate Relations and the College of ACES. The generous sponsors who make the AgTech Summit possible include: Bayer and The Climate Corporation, John Deere, Kin + Carta, Google Cloud, Corteva, COUNTRY Financial, AGCO, Land O’Lakes, and the Illinois Center for Digital Agriculture. About Research Park at the University of Illinois Research Park at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is a technology hub for startup companies and corporate research and development operations. Within Research Park there are 120 companies employing students and full-time technology professionals.
AgTech Innovation Summit Returns for Fifth Year Read Post »
Revolution Medicines is publicly traded as of February 12, 2020. The EnterpriseWorks graduate filed its initial public offering on January 17 for $100 million. According to Nasdaq on February 11, 2020, Revolution Medicines raised its proposed deal size to $231 million by offering over 10 million shares between $16 and $17. The company raised $238 million when the stock opened at $17 per share on February 12. It is listed on the Nasdaq under the symbol RVMD. Revolution Medicines was founded at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign by researchers Mark Goldsmith, David Pompliano, and Martin Burke. Burke was a professor of chemistry at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign at the time of founding the company in 2015. In addition to his affiliations with the Beckman Institute, Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, and the Biochemistry department, Burke is now the Associate Dean for Research and Professor at the Carle Illinois College of Medicine. He serves as the scientific advisory board chairman for Revolution Medicines, while Goldsmith serves as the president, CEO and board director. Revolution Medicines is a “clinical-stage precision oncology company focused on developing novel targeted therapies to inhibit elusive frontier targets within notorious growth and survival pathways, with particular emphasis on RAS and mTOR signaling pathways.” The company graduated from EnterpriseWorks in 2015, and it announced in July 2019 that it had raised $100 million in series C financing to advance drugs aimed at “frontier targets” in cancer. Currently, Revolution Medicines has raised $232 million from multiple equity financing rounds.
Revolution Medicines, EnterpriseWorks Graduate, Went Public Read Post »
2019 was a great year for the University of Illinois Research Park. In 2019, employment in the Research Park grew, ground was broken for several development projects, and many tech startups graduated from the EnterpriseWorks incubator. Here is a glimpse of the Research Park 2019 Year in Review: Research Park has experienced significant employment growth in the past five years. In 2015, the number of employees at Research Park was at 1,574. In 2019, employment reached a record of nearly 2,200 employees including 875 student interns from multi-disciplines. Three new innovation centers joined the Research Park in 2019. BP, Procter & Gamble, and Motorola Solutions opened their doors at the Park to advance their technology and engage with the campus community. In addition to the new additions to the Research Park, several startups graduated from EnterpriseWorks. Most of these companies stayed local to the Champaign-Urbana area. In fact, 70% of EnterpriseWorks graduates remain in the State of Illinois. In 2019, three projects broke ground in the Research Park. The Illinois Conference Center expansion, the addition of a Greenhouse to support the “Realizing Increased Photosynthetic Efficiency” (RIPE) project, and the construction of a multi-tenant building on Fourth Street are in the works with expected completion dates in 2020. On July 1, the governance of the Research Park was transferred from the U of I system to the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign campus. The scope of the Research Park will focus solely on the Urbana-Champaign campus. Throughout 2019, the Research Park hosted over 200 events including the AgTech and Big Data Summits, Women in Tech luncheons, entrepreneurial and intern workshops, and networking and recruiting events. 2019 Year in Review
Research Park 2019 Year in Review Read Post »
EnterpriseWorks graduate Revolution Medicines filed for an initial public offering of $100 million on January 17, 2020. The company applied for the Nasdaq stock symbol RVMD. This filing comes shortly after Revolution Medicines presented preliminary data from their phase 1 clinical trial which is being conducted under an agreement with Sanofi. Revolution Medicines has a history of securing funds to continue their research to develop more effective drugs that aim to target diseases that have previously been impossible to target. In July 2019, the company secured $100 million to target the RAS pathway; in April 2018, the company raised $56 million to continue their SHP2 program; and in early 2015, Revolution Medicines got a kick start with a $45 million investment from Third Rock Ventures. The company started in 2014 in the Research Park incubator, EnterpriseWorks, under the name Midasyn. There, they developed technology based on research conducted at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign by the company’s founder Dr. Martin Burke. This technology focused on targeting molecules that have been inaccessible for drug development. Essentially, Revolution Medicines set out to drug the undruggable. Since their start, Revolution Medicines has evolved into a precision-oncology company. Learn more about Revolution Medicines by visiting their website here.
Revolution Medicines Seeks $100 Million IPO Read Post »
EnterpriseWorks agtech startup EarthSense was featured in an OneZero Article about the regulations on autonomous tractors in January. This article stresses the importance of the freedom to send autonomous tractors over farm fields without much, if any, regulatory interference or risk of injuring humans helps speed the development of better technology. Cofounder Girish Chowdhary says “The challenge with agriculture is that the environment can be very different in different fields.” EarthSense, a company that develops ultra-compact autonomous robots was founded in 2016 by University of Illinois researchers and entrepreneurs Chinmay Soman and Girish Chowdhary. This past month, the company received Phase II SBIR funding from the National Science Foundation. This award will allow the startup to continue work toward large-scale deployment of TerraSentia for agricultural research and product development. To read the full article by OneZero, click here.
EarthSense, Featured on OneZero about Autonomous Tractors Read Post »
Corporations with innovation centers at the University of Illinois Research Park made a splash (no pun intended, Brunswick Corporation) at CES 2020, and we were there to capture it. Members of the Brunswick I-JET intern team, under the leadership of site director Troy Kollmann, guided visitors through various AR and AI tools built at Research Park. Kollmann was quoted about the AI technology in The Wall Street Journal. AARP Tech Nest site director Miranda Kemp showcased a prototype for an AR tool that helps older adults age in place, by making their homes safer and easier to manage. Kemp pitched the idea as part of an internal company hackathon and led its development. It’s not every day a John Deere sprayer shows up in Las Vegas. That’s exactly what was on the CES floor, with some of the company’s best technologists – including former John Deere Technology Innovation Center site director Julian Sanchez – to show the self-driving, remote sensing, GPS, precision imaging, machine learning enabled machine. It is great to have a strong Illinois contingent at CES, including University of Illinois Research Park’s Laura Frerichs and Laura Weisskopf Bleill , NCSA’s Brendan McGinty and Neil Andrews, and Katheryne Rehberg from the Office of Corporate Relations.
Research Park Companies Made a Splash at CES Read Post »
PhotoniCare, Inc., a company dedicated to revolutionizing healthcare by providing physicians with better diagnostic tools, today announced that the U.S. Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has granted 510(k) clearance for its TOMi™ Scope for non-invasive imaging of the middle ear. Using optical coherence tomography (OCT) high resolution depth imaging, TOMi Scope helps to determine the presence or absence of fluid in the middle ear and to characterize the fluid type. “Current tools can only provide a view of the surface of the eardrum, forcing physicians to make an assessment with very limited information, or to employ invasive surgical procedures to accurately identify middle ear pathologies,” said Diego Preciado, M.D., Ph.D. of the Children’s National Hospital in Washington, D.C., a lead investigator for clinical studies of the device. “TOMi Scope’s advanced light-based technology could dramatically alter the way children with ear problems are evaluated, enhancing our ability to inform optimal treatments.” Middle ear infections are the leading cause of hearing loss, surgery and antibiotic use, especially in children. Affecting more than 80% of children, they are misdiagnosed up to 50% of the time using the current gold standard, examination via otoscope.[i] Children can suffer from recurring ear infections for six to 12 months before they are referred to an ENT specialist, and are often prescribed increasingly potent antibiotics during this time. More than one million tube surgeries are performed in the U.S. alone every year. “Clinicians seeking to be more accurate and confident in their assessment of middle ear fluid and fluid type will find this new technology using light wave detection very helpful,” said Michael Pichichero, M.D., Director of the Rochester General Hospital Research Institute and Research Professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York. “The fact that it works well even in the presence of significant wax build-up is of great value. Wax continues to be a huge problem in middle ear diagnosis.” “At PhotoniCare we set out to solve the massive problem of frequent misdiagnosis of middle ear infections, and the overuse of antibiotics and referrals to surgery in children that result,” added PhotoniCare co-founder & CEO Ryan Shelton. “We thank the FDA for clearing our TOMi Scope under a new product code unique to our technology, and look forward to bringing this innovation to doctors and patients very soon.” PhotoniCare expects to immediately launch the TOMi Scope in a limited release in select U.S. geographies, with a full national launch later in 2020. About PhotoniCare Founded in 2013, PhotoniCare’s mission is to revolutionize healthcare by providing physicians with better diagnostic tools, starting with the TOMi Scope™, the first and only otoscope to provide non-invasive imaging of the middle ear using a novel application of Optical Coherence Tomography (OCT) to directly visualize and characterize fluid in the middle ear, a necessity for the diagnosis of middle ear infections. PhotoniCare has developed a patented imaging platform technology that provides growth opportunities beyond otology (study of the ear). Peer-reviewed studies show that the same handheld OCT technology can be used to image other areas, such as the anterior and posterior segments of the eye, the skin, and in the mouth. PhotoniCare has been recognized by numerous organizations, winning the 2018 MedTech Innovator Execution Award and the 2018 AdvaMed Accel Virginia Shimer Rybski Memorial Award. The company was also a member of the 2016 Dreamit Ventures accelerator program and recently took first place at the 7th Annual Insight Product Development 2019 HealthTECH Startup Competition. PhotoniCare has received more than $4 million in support from the National Institutes of Health, most recently a Phase SBIR I award for work in artificial intelligence. In 2015, PhotoniCare was the winner of a grant from the National Capital Consortium for Pediatric Device Innovation (NCC-PDI), an FDA-funded consortium led by Children’s National Hospital. This press release originally appeared on PhotoniCare’s website. This story was also featured by WCIA. See their coverage here.
