KickStart Awards Program: Celebrating 10 Years

kvs-award-10-years
November 15, 2019
By Brock

Time moves fast when you’re busy working with startups. We blinked and 10 years have passed since the first version of the KickStart Venture Services (KVS) program started at UNC-Chapel Hill with the mission to support UNC-born ventures.

From its inception, one of KickStart’s key initiatives has been to provide vital early-stage funding for startups from Carolina through its KickStart Commercialization Grant Awards. 

The program has been open to early-stage companies based on research innovations for which at least one  founder is a faculty member, student or staff person at UNC-Chapel Hill. Over the last decade, KickStart has given more than $2 million in awards to 57 companies.

These awards are a stepping-stone that propels companies to be more attractive for funding from grants, angel investments and venture capital. With more than $600 million raised in funding over the last 10 years by KVS awardees, the program and its portfolio of startup companies are on the right track.

Apply for Jan. 2020
KVS awards

KVS awards by the numbers

KVS award quotables

Reflections from startup leaders about the impact the KVS award program had on their ventures.

“KickStart funding enabled us to get our first two STTR awards.”

--Rudy Juliano, Initos Pharmaceuticals
Initos Pharmaceuticals
“The award helped make it possible to bridge the gap from bench research to initiation of the commercialization process. We begin our multicenter Phase I clinical trial this month – very exciting.”

-- Laurence Katz, Hibernaid
Hibernaid
“It was our first grant and a significant boost to the company - not just from a capital perspective but to know that the university was behind us and supporting us.”

--Dan Copeland, Renovion, Inc.
Renovion
“The award (although is small) enabled us to do the first clinical implementation demonstration of our low-cost cancer treatment solution in Zambia Cancer Diseases Hospital. We have learned a great deal and made impact in Zambia already.”

--Sha Chang, EmpowerRT
EmpowerRT
“KickStart provided us the very first seed of funding ($50K) to gather proof of concept data to validate our technology and apply for bigger grants (NIH STTR)“

--Rahima Benhabbour, AnelleO, Inc.
AnelleO
“(KVS) helped with access to capital that was needed at the early stage.”

--Stephen Eckel, Assure Technologies
Assure Technologies
“We received modest funding a number of years ago to initiate safety-tox studies, which were ultimately completed with major NIH funding.”

--Michael Jay, Capture Pharma Inc.
Capture Pharma
“(KVS) provided some initial startup funding and advice/contacts.”

--Stephen Frye, Meryx, Inc.
Meryx Pharma
“Our company just got started. KVS really cared about our company like their own company. The KVS team helped me a lot to define the commercial side.”

--Jinsong Huang, Perotech Corp.
Perotech Corp.
“KVS support has helped with funding patent lawyers to strengthen our IP."

--Robert Tarran, Eldec Pharma
Eldec Pharma
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KVS award winners, 2010-2019

Altis Biosystems

AnelleO

Assure Technologies

Augment Medical

Bedrock Therapeutics

BioDeptronix LLC

BMPolytech

Capture Pharma

Cell Microsystems

Coordination Therapeutics

Cortical Metrics

Duologics LLC

Eldec Pharmaceuticals

Empower RT

Enci Therapeutics

Enzerna Biosciences

Eppin Pharma

G1 Therapeutics

Glycan Therapeutics

GoodBowls

Healthspan Dx (Sapero Bio)

Hibernaid

Initos Pharmaceuticals

Irex Pharma

Iris Biomed

Ironwood Material Science

Joe Startup Technologies

KindHeart

KXT Bio

Lotus Bio FX

Meryx Pharmaceuticals

Neurogate Therapeutics

Neuronano Pharma

New Paradigm Therapeutics

Novametics

Novolipid

Perotech Corporation

Plex Diagnostics

Premirr Plastics LLC

PrimeNeuro LLC

Pulvinar Neuro

Qualiber

Renovion Inc

Reveris LLC

Rheomics (now Redbud Labs)

SandBar Oyster Co.

SeqQuest

Serratta LLC

Sono Vascular

SonoVol LLC

Sove, Inc.

Spirovation

Spyryx LLC

STAT Apps

Symberix

Synereca

X-in-8