Rice launches venture fund, writes up to $500K checks into its own spinouts
What's the deal? Rice UniversityDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → has launched One Giant Leap Ventures Fund IDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, an early-stage venture fund to back the school's spinouts and alumni-founded startups. The fund held its first close in August and has since made its first investment in Rice spinout Motif Neurotech.
The structure: One Giant Leap is an institutional venture fund that lets both equity limited partners and philanthropic investors participate. It will write checks of up to $500,000 into Rice-affiliated companies — those founded or led by alumni, students, or faculty, or built on Rice-licensed intellectual property.
Why now? The fund advances Rice's Momentous strategic plan, which calls for the university to speed up commercialisation of research, expand entrepreneurial opportunities, and attract early-stage venture funding to Rice and Houston. It builds on the university's seven-year run as the No. 1 graduate entrepreneurship program in The Princeton Review rankings.
What's the endgame? Rice wants to let its community invest in and profit from the ventures it produces. "For the first time," President Reginald DesRoches said, the structure is "allowing our community to invest and participate in the success of our spinouts and alumni founded ventures."
Startups moving through Rice programs — including the Liu Idea Labs' Innovation Fellows and Summer Venture Studio, and the Rice Alliance's Business Plan Competition — will be eligible to seek investment. The fund is led by managing director Adrian Trömel, a Rice alumnus and the university's interim chief innovation officer, with alumna Nafisa Istami as investment manager.
The bigger picture: One Giant Leap joins a growing innovation base at Rice that includes the 16-acre Ion District and the Arc, a 200,000ft² research and office building set to break ground this year, alongside initiatives such as the Biotech Launchpad and RBL VenturesDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
The signal: Universities are increasingly moving beyond tech-transfer offices to run their own venture vehicles, capturing upside from research they fund and keeping founders close to campus. By blending traditional investment with philanthropic capital, Rice is testing a model that ties its endowment directly to the startups it creates.
Read more: news.rice.edu
Image credit: JoeInSouthernCA
