Research Commercialization Academy (BETA 0.01)

Author: Jeff Engel

Source: www.bizjournals.com

Interest: Wisconsin legislators are planning to introduce a venture capital bill separate from the state budget proposal, perhaps as soon as next week, according to advocates who have been meeting with legislators. Gov. Scott Walker’s biennial budget proposal, introduced last month, recommended at least $25 million over two years for venture capital to support early-stage firms.

Link: http://www.bizjournals.com/milwaukee/blog/2013/03/wisconsin-legislators-could-introduce.html

Author: The Wall Street Journal

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Interest: Google Ventures is leading a $30 million financing for One Medical Group, a San Francisco startup with a new approach to delivering primary-care medical services, VentureWire has learned. One Medical operates primary-care physician offices that enable patients to book appointments online, including same-day visits. It promises appointments will begin promptly and that the doctor will have a good amount of time to spend with the patient.

Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/venturecapital/2013/03/22/the-daily-startup-google-ventures-backs-primary-care-services-startup/

Author: Tanya Prive

Source: www.forbes.com

Interest: Venture Capitalists have been behind startup financing since 1946, when the first two VC firms were created in the United States. These firms were American Research and Development Corporation (ARDC) and J.H. Whitney & Company. Georges Doriot founded ARDC while John Hay Whitney created J.H. Whitney & Company. Both of these men were considered the pioneers of VC investing.

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/tanyaprive/2013/03/20/the-biggest-threat-to-venture-capitalists/

Author: Center for American Progress

Source: www.earthtechling.com

Interest: The recently released Senate and House budget resolutions for fiscal year 2014 reflect diametrically opposed visions of America’s energy and climate futures. The Senate budget invests in clean energy technologies that reduce carbon pollution responsible for climate change. The House budget, on the other hand, ignores climate change and defunds clean energy technologies.

Link: http://www.earthtechling.com/2013/03/two-different-federal-visions-of-a-clean-energy-future/

Author: Zachary Shahan

Source: www.cleantechnica.com

Interest: Another day, another story about fossil fuel–funded attacks on clean energy. Thanks to venerable organizations like the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) for getting out there and helping to advance society, rather than send it backwards. This repost below is actually from yesterday, but I think it’s still worth a quick read.

Link: http://cleantechnica.com/2013/03/20/scientists-to-ohio-senators-continue-clean-energy-standards/

Author: Lisa Song

Source: InsideClimate News

Interest: By 2050, New York State could run entirely on energy produced from wind, water and sunlight. That radical finding, which goes further than any other clean energy plan envisioned for New York, comes from a peer-reviewed study published last week in the journal Energy Policy.

Link: http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20130321/scientist-policymakers-clean-energy-could-fuel-new-york-2050

Author: Zach Noorani

Source: TechCrunch

Interest: Editor’s note: This is the first part of a two-part guest column by Zach Noorani that examines the ways in which equity crowdfunding might impact the startup world and the venture capital industry specifically. Zach is a former VC and current second-year MBA student at MIT Sloan. Follow him on Twitter @znoorani.

Link: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/17/is-software-eating-the-venture-capitalists-too-part-i/

Author: Robert R. Ackerman Jr

Source: USA Today

Interest: (EDITOR'S NOTE: Last fall, Iran came under suspicion of devastating the computer network of Saudi Arabia oil giant Aramco. Shortly thereafter, Iran was again deemed the culprit behind a slew of massive attacks that took down a string of American banks' web sites. Then hackers stole 3.6 million Social Security number from the South Carolina Department of Revenue. In this guest commentary, Bob Ackerman, founder and managing director of Allegis Capital, outlines how those cyberintrusions, and...

Link: http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2013/03/18/cybersecurity-venture-capital-startups-investments/1970715/

Author: Nick Clayton

Source: The Wall Street Journal

Interest: The accelerator formed by Gil Ben-Artzy and Shuly Galili to expose Israeli startups to Silicon Valley has sent its latest batch to Palo Alto. Although they represent a diverse collection of market sectors, the five companies are all B2B focused, unlike previous groups which were consumer oriented.

Link: http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2013/03/18/upwests-israeli-b2b-startups-head-for-silicon-valley/

Author: Scott Olster

Source: CNN Money

Interest: FORTUNE -- Call it a math lesson. Why would a school pay $80 for a textbook that may quickly become irrelevant, when it could pay around $5 or less? A cadre of so-called open-education publishers is slowly beginning to gain the trust of schools and university systems by posing that question. Using free, open-source education materials, firms like CK-12 and Boundless are building digital textbooks and learning materials (mostly for math and science) that students and teachers can use and...

Link: http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/03/18/startups-are-about-to-blow-up-the-textbook/

Author: John Tozzi

Source: SFGate

Interest: Hanhai zPark is an 80,000-square-foot incubator for tech startups that opened in June in San Jose. It's backed by investors from China, including the largest state-owned developer of business parks in Beijing. The group plans to open a biotech incubator twice the size in South San Francisco, near Genentech's campus, by the middle of 2013. They're searching for a third Bay Area property to turn into a 200,000-square-foot space for clean-tech companies next year.

Link: http://www.sfgate.com/technology/article/Chinese-incubators-growing-in-Bay-Area-4343918.php

Author: Arlene Weintraub

Source: terra

Interest: When Seth Freedman co-founded IntelligentM in December 2011, he was confident of the appeal of his company's product -- an electronic bracelet that keeps track of hand washing among health workers so hospitals can improve hygiene and better control the spread of infections. But Freedman's previous experience as an entrepreneur was in consumer products and GPS technology, so he lacked the connections to break into the competitive hospital market.

Link: http://news.terra.com/health-tech-incubators-see-influx-of-startups,195dd29cae47d310VgnCLD2000000dc6eb0aRCRD.html

Author: Martin Zwilling

Source: Business Insider

Interest: Many entrepreneurs seems to be convinced that the “crowd” of regular people using the Internet will somehow solve their startup funding needs, when they sense a lack of interest from accredited investors. Professionals maintain that there is plenty of money for equity in qualified startups, and funding marginal startups via any source will only make more people unhappy.

Link: http://www.businessinsider.com/is-crowd-funding-the-answer-when-investors-decline-2013-3

Author: Michelle Hammond

Source: startup smart

Interest: A new crowdfunding platform aimed solely at local sporting clubs has highlighted the growth of niche crowdfunding websites, suggesting there are opportunities for other start-ups to specialise. Sportaroo, which has a team of six based in Australia and the United Kingdom, allows sports teams to raise funds for team projects by offering merchandise, experiences and sponsorship.

Link: http://www.startupsmart.com.au/technology/five-niche-crowdfunding-sites-on-the-stump-for-start-ups/201303189200.html

Author: Cameron Keng

Source: Forbes

Interest: It’s insane that the world is buying into the joke known as “Crowdfunding.” Everyone and their mother is predicting that it’s the next miracle in the making. But, let’s be honest with ourselves. Crowdfunding is neither new, nor innovative. Most importantly, it doesn’t make sense.

Link: http://www.forbes.com/sites/cameronkeng/2013/03/17/investment-crowdfunding-is-a-ghetto-stock-market/

Author: AnnArbor.com Freelance Journalist

Source: Ann Arbor.com

Interest: Recent comments made by high-powered entrepreneurs and venture capitalists are drawing attention to the relationship between Ann Arbor and the innovation and entrepreneurship hub of Silicon Valley. Now a new VC firm aims to capitalize on local ideas and talent, Detroit Free Press columnist Tom Walsh writes.

Link: http://www.annarbor.com/business-review/venture-capital-firm-wants-to-find-next-silicon-valley-style-home-run-in-ann-arbor/

Author: Jennifer Gosnell

Source: The Varsity

Interest: Google recently acquired the University of Toronto start-up company DNNresearch Inc., the brainchild of computer science professor Geoffrey Hinton and his graduate students Alex Krizhevsky and Ilya Sutskever. The start-up’s research focuses on deep neural networks that are capable of developing digital speech recognition. Under their new arrangement with Google, the DNNresearch Inc. team will split their time between Google’s Mountain View, California-based headquarters and Toronto.

Link: http://thevarsity.ca/2013/03/18/google-acquires-u-of-t-start-up/

Author: Dan Gunderson

Source: PostBulletin.com

Interest: Concerned about a potential environmental hazard, government regulators and researchers are studying the presence of nanoparticles in consumer products. Nanoparticles are tiny bits of material shaped at the molecular level that can change the properties of common materials. Increasingly, manufacturers are using them to design goods that make life easier.

Link: http://www.postbulletin.com/news/local/tracking-nano-tech-s-risks-a-tough-task/article_6ba52dfa-6926-520a-a47a-d58ea6fead9e.html

Author: Dexter Johnson

Source: SPECTRUM

Interest: In the early days of nanotech commercialization, it was popular to add nanomaterials to composites-- like carbon nanotubes (CNTs) in bicycles— in order for them to be “stronger than steel”. But that was mostly just marketing copy. The CNTs merely replaced the resins that had previously filled out the material matrix. It was pretty unclear whether they actually imparted any of the capabilities that nanomaterials possessed, like strength and flexibility.

Link: http://spectrum.ieee.org/nanoclast/semiconductors/nanotechnology/researchers-cross-the-valley-of-death-in-nanocomposite-design

Author: .

Source: Photonics.Com

Interest: CAMBRIDGE, Mass., March 14, 2013 — Boston Micromachines Corp. (BMC) has received a $1.2 million National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant to fabricate a retinal imaging system using microelectromechanical systems (MEMS)-based deformable mirrors for wavefront correction. The instrument, a next-generation adaptive optics scanning ophthalmoscope (AOSLO), was developed in collaboration with the Indiana University School of Optometry under a Phase II Competing Renewal Small Business Innovation Resea

Link: http://www.photonics.com/Article.aspx?AID=53339