Virtual Incubator Project

The University of Utah can play an important role in fostering the success of University spin-offs by encouraging further technologydevelopment through sponsored research activity at the University. Until a spin-off is able to finance its own laboratory space, the University can act as a “virtual incubator” for these fledgling companies.
With the return of funds from its commercialization efforts, the University has an opportunity to enhance not just the survival rate of our spin-offs, but to speed up the process of creating successful commercial enterprises by providing “Virtual Incubator Projects” or “VIP’s” to these spin-offs.
A VIP will consist of a “research voucher” granted to qualified University spin-offs. This voucher entitles the spin-off up to $50,000 credit for sponsored research conducted at the University. The research activity will be directed to the further development of technology licensed from the University. The University of Utah Research Foundation (UURF) will sponsor these vouchers by transferring funds to the University to cover the credit when the voucher is exercised. There will be no overhead charged to these vouchers, therefore the full voucher will go towards research at the University. Also, the University will grant the spin-off an option to license any new intellectual property created in the performance of the contract. The UURF will receive, in exchange for this voucher, equity from the spin-off equaling 2% of the spin-off company.
The intent of the VIP awards is to provide a funding opportunity in the R&D gap between company inception and seed investment in order to: (a) accelerate the research and development cycle for University spin-offs so that product will reach the market more quickly than without the award, and (b) encourage more University spin-offs to reach commercial success.

Qualification Criteria:

  1. The applicant company must be a licensee of technology owned by the University of Utah before the voucher is accessible to the company.
  2. The applicant company must not have more than 10 full-time employees.
  3. The applicant company must have a formal business plan.
  4. Because the VIP grants are designed to be “gap funding,” the applicant company may not have received more than $2 million dollars cumulative in third party funding.
  5. The applicant company must commit matching funds equivalent to the award amount. Those matching funds must be spent on the project, but there is no requirement to spend that matching money at the University. Third party grants and awards, including STTR and SBIR awards, can be used as matching money.
  6. The award money must be spent at the University of Utah.
  7. The proposed research must be designed to measurably accelerate development and commercialization of the licensed technology.
  8. Applications for VIP’s will be accepted each calendar quarter, between January 1 and January 15, April 1 and April 15, July 1 and July 15 and between October 1 and October 15.
  9. Each proposed research project will be subjected to a review process involving reviewers who are not part of the Technology Commercialization Office. The reviewers will report to the Technology Commercialization Office which may seek additional scientific or technical input as required.
  10. The Reviewers will evaluate whether the proposed research project is likely to accelerate the productization of the licensed technology as contemplated by the applicant’s business plan.


Application Package
Applications will be submitted to the following address:
Technology Commercialization Office
615 Arapeen Drive, Suite 310
Salt Lake City, Utah 84108.
A completed application will consist of the following:
1. Business plan for the licensee company. Limited to 15 pages.
2. Proposed work statement for the project being conducted at the University of Utah including budget for the proposed project. Limited to 3 pages.
3. Justification statement describing how the proposed project will expedite the achievement of milestones outlined in the business plan.
4. Signed statement declaring that licensee meets and will follow qualifications and requirements to be a recipient of the VIP award.
Applicants should consult the University Conflict of Interest Committee when they submit the VIP application in order to expedite the process if awarded a research voucher. 
The justification statement (#3 above) and signed declaration (#4 above) requirements can be completed by filling out and submitting the attached form.

Contact Brent Edington at the Technology Commercialization Office for information regarding VIP program.