You know the ideas developed at your university make a big impact.
The challenge is proving it.

  • How many startup companies are affiliated with your university?
  • How much funding do these companies raise?
  • How many jobs do they create?
  • How much revenue do they earn?
  • What economic and social impact do these companies make in local communities?
  • What is the impact of your on-campus innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) programs?

Startups database delivers answers on impact

Innovate Carolina, the campus-wide initiative for innovation and entrepreneurship at UNC-Chapel Hill, created a novel, proprietary database to capture and report on how the University’s commercial and social ventures make an economic and social impact. The Innovate Carolina Startups Database enables our capture of key information and data about the University’s startup companies that are founded by faculty, students, staff, and recent alumni. The database enables framing of the data with the APLU’s Innovation and Economic Prosperity (IEP) framework:

  • Developing human capital and the future workforce.
  • Infusing research, ideas and entrepreneurship into the community.
  • Building community-connected partnerships that improve how citizens work and live.

About the Innovate Carolina Startups Database

The Innovate Carolina Startups Database is part of our larger engagement platform that also includes the Innovate Carolina Network Database and the Innovate Carolina I&E Impact Dashboard. If you are from another university and are interested in learning more about our database, research processes and metrics, please go to our startups database and I&E dashboard guide. 

  • Expansive approach. Tracks more than 600 startup companies affiliated with UNC-Chapel Hill since 1958.
  • A new model for measurement.  Consolidates data from more than 25 internal and external sources on funding, revenue, jobs, founding school, program participation, etc, following our Business Intelligence Process.
  • 360-degree view. Collects, manages and analyzes data for both IP- and non-IP-based startups, including commercial and social ventures.
  • On-point data on demand. Allows a research team to maintain statistics, deliver reports and answer questions immediately.
  • Program partnerships. Gathers, tracks and reports detailed results from more than 25 I&E partner programs on campus, including UNC’s incubators, accelerators, services and curricular programs.
  • Journey of an idea. Monitors which I&E programs serve as supportive touchpoints to individual faculty and student ideas as they grow into startup ventures.

Contact our team