Penn picked first three faculty spinouts for early stage StartUP investments
Any profits from the investments will go back into the fund, which is managed by Penn's Office of the Chief Investment Officer.
The University of Pennsylvania picked the first three faculty-founded companies for early stage investments from its newly established $10 million StartUP fund, the university said Wednesday.
The three companies are working in maternal health, advanced radio-frequency filtering technology, and AI-powered drug discovery.
Each is receiving the maximum investment of $250,000 from the fund launched in December to make seed investments in companies founded by university researchers.
“Penn researchers are developing technologies with the potential to address some of the most important challenges facing society today, and many of these solutions have the potential to create entirely new markets,” John Swartley, Penn’s chief innovation officer, said in an announcement.
Here are some details on the three companies:
Vasowatch is developing a non-invasive monitoring system to predict the risk of maternal postpartum hemorrhage, a leading cause of maternal death. Its cofounders are Penn Nursing adjunct professor Stefanie Modri and former Penn Engineering faculty James Weimer. The company will use the money to fine-tune the product and to pay for a clinical trial anticipated to start next year.
OneFiltr, cofounded by Troy Olsson, a professor in the School of Engineering and Applied Science, has a compact device designed to allow a cell phone to isolate and process specific frequencies. The company will use its investment to further development of its device for evaluation by aerospace and defense companies.
Peptaris Inc. has an AI platform for evaluating and developing drugs based on peptides, which are building blocks for proteins. Cofounders are César de la Fuente and Marcelo Der Torossian Torres. The StartUP investment is part of a larger seed round that Peptaris is using refine its model and evaluate its first candidates. Peptaris said in an SEC filing June that it raised $4 million from investors.
























