The Washington Research Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in Seattle dedicated to funding research and scholarship within Washington state, has granted over $1.2 million to support entrepreneurship training programs at both the University of Washington and Washington State University.
1. This funding will play a pivotal role in supporting the Postdoctoral Entrepreneurship Program (PEP), an initiative at the University of Washington designed to assist researchers in bringing their innovations to the commercial market. Additionally, part of this award will be used to establish a similar program at Washington State University later this year.
2. PEP, overseen by the University of Washington’s CoMotion innovation division, was launched a decade ago and has provided support to 29 startups and their founders, including notable individuals such as Greg Newbloom, CEO of Membrion, and David Younger, CEO of A-Alpha Bio.
3. François Baneyx, the Vice Provost for Innovation at the University of Washington and the Director of CoMotion, expressed that, “The transformation of technologies developed within the state’s academic research institutions holds the potential to generate substantial economic and societal benefits that will have a far-reaching impact, not only in our region but also across the globe.”
