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BOSTON – Today, MassVentures announced the launch of the
rebranded Massachusetts Academic
Spinouts Center (MASC), formerly known as the Mass Tech
Transfer Center, to accelerate academic spinout company formation and
success. MASC will engage with the entrepreneurial ecosystem and
Massachusetts’ world-class academic institutions and research labs to
help inventors, researchers, and entrepreneurs to bring their innovations
to market.
Academic spinouts are companies formed to commercialize inventions and
technologies developed as the result of research at universities,
academic medical centers and nonprofit labs. They are frequently founded by
a faculty or staff member or a student affiliated with the university.
Massachusetts higher education institutions and academic research
hospitals invest more than $8 billion annually in research, and the
state’s standing as the highest rated state in the nation for education
makes it a leader in academic spinouts, with groundbreaking companies
such as Moderna, Akamai, CRISPR Therapeutics, and E-Ink evolving from
academic institutions in Massachusetts.
“Our academic research institutions are at the forefront of innovation
and discovery,” said Economic Development Secretary Yvonne Hao.
“We are excited for MassVentures to transform the Massachusetts Academic
Spinouts Center into a powerful engine for growth in our innovation
sector, driving advancements across multiple disciplines from AI to
biotech while expanding economic activity statewide.”
“MassVentures has been an active venture investor in academic spinouts,
which represent over 80 percent of our current portfolio,” said MassVentures
President and CEO Charlie Hipwood. “We have supported academic
founders of early-stage ventures with grant programs and are excited to
continue this important work through the Massachusetts Academic Spinout
Center.”
Since 2010, Massachusetts academic institutions have formed more than one
thousand spinouts, including many supported by MassVentures, such as
Ascend Elements, JetCool Technologies, Aclarity, AeroShield, Eden
Geopower, Ginkgo Bioworks, and Emvolon. Through the MASC, MassVentures
will launch initiatives to engage with institutions, investors, and
service providers to strengthen Massachusetts’ leadership in forming,
funding, and growing academic spinouts, and programs to assess and report
spinout activity and performance at academic institutions across the state.
MASC will work closely with the Massachusetts Association of
Technology Transfer Offices (MATTO), an independent association
administered by MassVentures whose members comprise the tech transfer
offices at nonprofit research institutions in Massachusetts. Currently,
34 institutions belong to MATTO, including universities like UMass, MIT,
and Harvard; health care systems and hospitals like Beth Israel Lahey
Health and Massachusetts General Hospital; and nonprofits like the Woods
Hole Oceanographic Institution and the MITRE Corporation. MATTO's mission
is to promote efficient, effective transfer of knowledge and technology from
academic institutions to companies that develop and bring novel products
to market for the public good.
“I’m excited to bring my experience in tech transfer and startups to this
important initiative,” said MassVentures Vice
President and Director of MASC Myron Kassaraba. “Activating more
and better spinouts across all of the state’s research institutions
represents an opportunity for greater participation by inventors as
founders to build lasting companies and bring their discoveries to
market.”
"Having worked with hundreds of students and faculty who want to
start a company based on their research, our team at Pillar VC has seen
firsthand that matching incredible talent with capital and resources can
help build extraordinary companies," said Jamie Goldstein,
founding partner at Pillar VC. "State government efforts to
further support university spinoffs will only help contribute to
Massachusetts' thriving economy. Pillar VC looks forward to collaborating
with MASC on accelerating academic spinout formation from local research
institutions, and helping these ventures grow and succeed right here in
the Bay State."
“The path to commercial success for academic stage discoveries is very
often through a spinout,” said Irene Abrams, Vice President
Technology Development & New Ventures at Boston Children’s Hospital. “The
vibrant innovation ecosystem in Massachusetts has nourished many a Boston
Children’s Hospital spinout. I’ve seen our spinouts find their
first homes in local incubators, secure funding from local venture
capital, partner with the biopharma companies based here to develop novel
therapeutics and be acquired by pharma, often local, when they reach the
clinical/commercial stage including some Children’s such as Moderna,
Affinivax, Morphic Therapeutics, Casgevy. The state’s focus on supporting
academic spinouts will surely lead to even greater success.”
The Legislature created the Mass Tech Transfer Center in 2003 and it was
based at the University of Massachusetts until 2022, when it transferred
operations to MassVentures.
Since 2020, 85 percent of the companies MassVentures has invested in have
been academic spinouts. Those academic spinouts have raised approximately
$2 billion in private capital and received more than $500 million in
federal non-dilutive capital, and have created or retained more than 350
jobs in Massachusetts. MassVentures also supports the translation of
academic research into viable businesses and jobs by managing grant
programs such as the Acorn, Catalyst, and START programs, and running
accelerator programs such as the Founders School and the
Commercialization Accelerator. |
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