Page 14 - Technology and Innovation Journal - 19-1

352 BYRD ET AL.

at Columbia and direct funding of over $4 million the six partner schools, with twenty-two teams ulti-
to 35 projects. Of these funded projects, six have mately selected as awardees. As a result of the PBNY
spun out of the university into start-ups, raising funding, there have already been sixteen new inven-
$9 million to date, and five have been licensed to tions disclosed to the universities, eleven prototypes
established companies in industry, with one already completed, eight new start-ups incorporated, and four
FDA approved and in use for both clinical practice license agreements signed. Teams have also raised
and research. In addition, funded projects have nearly $3 million in additional grant funding, includ-
secured an additional $49 million in government ing five Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)
and foundation grants to further support transla- grants, with several more applications in the pipeline.
tional research efforts on these projects within the Additionally, one team from the first cycle recently
University. closed a $9 million Series A investment. To assist
Having seen the success of Columbia’s biomedical the teams, the program has a pool of over a hundred
accelerator program, in 2013, Columbia Technology advisors and mentors, as well as a panel of fifteen
Ventures (CTV), which is Columbia’s technology industry and venture capital judges, who provide
transfer office, applied for a grant from the New York feedback during the application process.
State Energy Research and Development Authority to The successes of Columbia-Coulter and PBNY
establish a proof-of-concept center for clean energy in pushing university technologies to the mar-
technologies using a comparable model. Columbia ket inspired the concept for Combine, a program
partnered with Brookhaven National Lab, Cornell launched by the NYC Media Lab. The program offers
NYC Tech, and Stony Brook University and won design and operation support from NYU and CTV
one of the three awards. Concurrently, New York and is funded by the New York City Economic Devel-
University (NYU) partnered with the City Univer- opment Corporation and the NYC Mayor’s Office
sity of New York and won another of the awards. for Media and Entertainment. Combine accelerates
Since Columbia, NYU, and the other institutions NYC university teams working on digital media-re-
are all co-located in downstate New York and have lated technologies through a program similar to that
a history of successful collaborations, the institu- offered by PBNY and Columbia-Coulter while lever-
tions formed one joint center called PowerBridgeNY aging the Media Lab’s well-established consortium of
(PBNY). Together, the institutions are able to share 20+ media corporations and nine NYC universities.
resources and responsibilities rather than duplicate Combine pushes teams to find product-market fit,
or compete for applicants, mentors, judges, sponsors, pivot the prototype based on intense customer dis-
investors, events, and so forth. As a result, PBNY has covery, regularly interact with the media industry, and
$10 million in funding to spend across the six partner construct a “story” for the final pitch. The ultimate
institutions over the five-year period. goal is to have teams exit the program with a clearly
The goals of PBNY are similar to those of the identified business, a skeleton prototype, and signif-
Columbia-Coulter program. First, the program seeks icant leads with industry partners and investors.
to move clean energy technologies developed at the Combine has completed its first cycle, for which
universities out of the lab and into the market, ideally over 60 applications were received from nine NYC uni-
as start-ups based in New York State. The program versities, with nine applications accepted. During the
provides translational funding for prototypes as well course of the four-month program, teams conducted
as an education in entrepreneurship, mentorship, more than 1,000 customer interviews combined and
marketing, and other support mechanisms. Another regularly interacted with mentors from several media
goal is to enhance the clean technology ecosystem in corporations and investment firms. Since the first
the New York City (NYC) area, primarily by hosting cohort graduated this past spring, seven teams have
events, aggregating resources, and engaging exter- been incorporated as start-ups, three were accepted
nal organizations and individuals in the program as into later-stage privately funded start-up accelerators,
advisors, mentors, and judges. and two have already executed their first commercial
Over the last three years, PowerBridgeNY has agreements with industry partners.
received nearly a hundred applications from across