The NC State Office of Research Commercialization (ORC), led by Tim Martin, Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor of New Ventures and Investments, is developing the Boost Fund Program (Boost). Boost will be used to sponsor NC State commercialization projects and startup companies to provide answers to gaps in their business case to increase their chances of success in the market. Uses of the Boost support would be for professional grant writing, working with an embedded entrepreneur, developing a regulatory plan, or a design for manufacturing plan. Each Boost award would be flexible based on individual startup needs but will be capped at $10,000. The Boost program builds off the history of success of the SparkPlug program that was established with support from KIETS. Since its launch in late 2019, the Spark Plug program has funded 23 NC State startups that have gone on to generate over $8.5 million in SBIR/STTR funding. The Boost would leverage the local ecosystem experience and grant writing support capabilities to improve the chances of NC State startups winning this non-dilutive funding that is critical in developing university-originated research.
Based on historical NC startup successes over the last 15 years, the ideal formula for creating strong, resilient companies is when there is an experienced entrepreneur working in tandem with an innovative faculty member to provide needed business expertise and support. Through an embedded entrepreneur, Boost will be able to support short-term project-based engagements with seasoned professionals. NC State commercialization projects (pre-startups) will be selected based on successful completion of an ORC program (ex: I-Corps, PackStart, Venture Day, Chancellor’s Innovation Fund) and preference will be given to projects who have also completed the Foundations program, a new ORC-created curriculum designed to help startups and pre-startups build on previous customer discovery work to develop a viable business model based on real market insights generated through continued customer discovery. NC State startup companies will be selected based on having an executed license agreement with ORC and preference will be given to projects that have completed I-Corps and the Foundations program.