KickStart Venture Services announces commercialization award winners

Startup companies AnelleO, Sandbar Oyster Company and SeqQuest will use award funding to translate University discoveries into innovative products and services

KickStart Venture Services, a program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that supports the creation of faculty startup companies, has awarded three companies with commercialization awards. These awards will help them complete high-impact projects based on University intellectual property.

The commercialization awards, which KickStart Venture Services administers as part of UNC-Chapel Hill’s Office of Commercialization and Economic Development, are part of a campuswide effort to translate discoveries made in Carolina’s academic laboratories into products and services that can benefit people in North Carolina and around the world.

“As faculty founders of startup companies work to meet critical milestones on their journey to take ideas to market, the KickStart Commercialization Awards are a catalyst for their continued innovation,” says Judith Cone, Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at UNC-Chapel Hill. “These awards offer great flexibility for faculty to focus on both technology development and business strategy, both of which are critical for accelerating novel ideas that have the promise of becoming valuable devices, treatments and therapies that improve many lives.”

Don Rose, PhD, Director of KickStart Venture Services, states, “The Commercialization Award program provides crucial early-stage funding for startups from UNC-Chapel Hill. The award enables the companies to build prototypes, obtain preliminary data for SBIR grants or launch a beta program. It is a stepping stone that propels the companies to be more attractive for funding from government grants and angel and venture capital investors.”

Sandbar Oyster Company is one of three UNC-based startups that will use KickStart Commercialization Award funding to advance its research and business plan.

Three companies received awards, totaling $89,400, through this round of the program. To date, 59 companies have received more than $1.9 million in funding from KickStart. These companies went on to raise $22 million in SBIR/STTR grants and $157 million in total investments. The awards are inherently flexible for early-stage companies and fund both technical activities (validation studies, prototype development) and business activities (regulatory pathway, freedom to operate). Requests for applications (RFAs) are solicited on a quarterly basis from faculty founders.

The program also provides funding and access to internal and external business experts to assist faculty with the commercial translation of concepts for novel therapeutic small molecules, biologics, diagnostics, devices or digital health.The awards are inherently flexible for early-stage companies and fund both technical activities (validation studies, prototype development) and business activities (regulatory pathway, freedom to operate). Requests for applications (RFAs) are solicited on a quarterly basis from faculty founders. The program also provides funding and access to internal and external business experts to assist faculty with the commercial translation of concepts for novel therapeutic small molecules, biologics, diagnostics, devices or digital health. Company award winners for this round of the program include:

AnelleO is developing Anelleo PRO, which is the first 3D printed intravaginal ring to treat a women’s health condition. AnelleO was founded by Rahima Benhabbour, professor at the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and graduate student Rima Janusziewicz from the chemistry department.

Sandbar Oyster Company is commercializing a novel biodegradable composite material designed to restore oyster habitats, reverse the decline in oyster populations, protect the shoreline and revitalize the oyster industry as part of the coastal marketplace. Sandbar was founded by Niels Lindquist, professor at the UNC Institute of Marine Science, and commercial fisherman David “Clammerhead” Cessna.

SeqQuest has developed a software solution for single cell RNA sequencing analysis called RNAQuest. SeqQuest was formed by co-founders Joshua Starmer, associate research professor in the Department of Genetics, and Scott Magness, associate professor in the Joint Department of Biomedical Engineering with UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

About KickStart Venture Services

KickStart Venture Services is a program in the Office of Commercialization and Economic Development within the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Economic Development at UNC-Chapel Hill. KickStart Venture Services helps develop and launch startup companies based on University intellectual property. Funding for its commercialization awards comes from the North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences (NC TraCS) Institute and the Office of Commercialization and Economic Development. NC TraCS is the home of the University’s Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program. The CTSA program is led by the National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences at the National Institutes of Health.

Follow the Office of Commercialization and Economic Development on Twitter or visit oced.unc.edu/kickstart.