The last time we checked in on Pitt startup Lumis Corp. it was still a one-man show and seeking its first customers. As we catch up with the company today it has a new CEO that is not necessarily new the company, several paying customers, and is seeking an investment round to accelerate its growth.
Leading up to the fireworks that boom and echo across the hills and valleys of Western Pennsylvania on the Fourth of July, a group of Pitt innovators were busy determining whether their discoveries might make a huge impact on people’s lives.
Within four years of arriving at Pitt for a clinical and research fellowship in Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine (PACCM), Jason Rose had obtained a master’s in business administration degree and launched a startup company based on his lab’s research into antidotes for carbon monoxide poisoning. Rose’s timing was auspicious, as he launched his company, Globin Solutions, just as the University revised its policies around faculty participation in startups to provide more flexibility and more incentives for researchers to take that final step to ensure their discoveries make a real-world impact on people’s lives.
The University of Pittsburgh ranked #21 in the nation and in the top 10 of public universities for university technology transfer in a new report from Heartland Forward, a nonprofit whose mission is to whose mission is to improve economic performance in the center of the United States by advocating for fact-based solutions to foster job creation, knowledge-based and inclusive growth and improved health outcomes.
Investment rounds in university-based startups are getting larger and are coming in earlier stages of development, according to Osage University Partners (OUP), a venture capital fund that has raised more than $600 million and has invested in 125 university-based startups. OUP recently held a webinar on the topic of trends in university startup investing.