The New Venture Development is a mix of university resources and equity investment designed to provide a path to, and facilitate more, startup activity at UMass Lowell. We help teams explore and develop potential commercialization strategies, test market assumptions, recruit university and non-university expertise and talent and secure early-stage funding. Funding sources include commercialization grants, internal and external competitions, state and local financing mechanisms and private funding.
This activity, paired with strong intellectual property resources, speeds early commercialization efforts and better prepares our university-related startups for other financing opportunities. We also manage the River Hawk New Venture Fund which pools licensing revenue and committed alumni contributions to make pre-seed and seed-stage investments into University-affiliated technology. The Office of New Venture Development also manages the University of Massachusetts NSF I-Corp Award Program. The NSF Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program is designed to empower UMass Lowell faculty (and our partner universities), researchers, and students to test the commercial potential of their research and ideas. I-corps also prepares scientist and engineers to expand their focus beyond the laboratory and increase the impact of basic research.