Startup Portfolio
In the last five years, CoMotion helped to facilitate 2,160 licenses and 52 UW spinoffs which have gone on to raise over $4.1B in non-dilutive and dilutive funding. Today, there are 110 active UW spinoffs in the state of Washington with over 1,071 employees.
In this same period, more than 450 startups have been launched by current undergraduate, graduate students and alumni through the Buerk Center. Those ventures, large and small, have raised more than $85 million dollars. In addition, more than 88% of the ventures that received funding through the Jones + Foster Accelerator over the past ten years remain in business today.
Success stories
Startup success takes many forms – from standalone UW spinoffs and startups, to acquisitions of UW projects or startups by leading companies, to licensing of UW IP to industry leaders for further development. Read about a few of our success stories below.
Proprio employees, led by CEO Gabriel Jones, pose for a team photo. (Proprio photo)
Proprio
A revolutionary platform built to harness the power of machine learning and computer vision to improve surgical navigation.
Co-founded by Josh Smith, PhD (Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering, Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering); Sam Browd, MD, PhD (Professor of Neurological Surgery, Director of Seattle Children’s Hydrocephalus Program); James Youngquist (CSE PhD student, now Head of R&D, Proprio); Ken Denman (Co-Founder & Chairman of the Board, Proprio, Board member, UW Foundation); and Gabriel Jones (CEO, Proprio, UW Foster MBA grad)
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Ingrid Swanson Pultz, Ph.D., of the Institute for Protein Design (IPD) co-founded PvP Biologics with David Baker, Ph.D., director of IPD, and Justin Siegel, Ph.D. ’11 (biochemistry).
PvP Biologics
A UW spinout that developed an oral enzyme for the treatment of celiac disease which affects an estimated 2.4 million Americans. It was acquired by Takeda in 2020.
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A-Alpha Bio was founded by University of Washington Bioengineering PhD graduates David Younger (standing) and Randolph Lopez. (A-Alpha Bio Photo).
A-Alpha Bio
A-Alpha Bio is focused on accelerating drug development with synthetic biology and next-generation sequencing. They are disrupting the way that pharmaceutical companies discover, optimize, and characterize drugs.
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Membrion CEO Greg Newbloom (Ph.D., Chemical Engineering) participating in GeekWire's Elevator Pitch (Photo by Dan DeLong)
Membrion
Membrion makes membranes that are critical components in machines that turn some types of salty water into fresh water. Membrion says its membranes lower the cost of filtering so-called “brackish water” by approximately 30 percent, making a previously un-affordable process more doable.
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Nanodropper teammates, from left to right: Mackenzie Andrews (UW Bioengineering), Jennifer Steger and Allisa Song. Not pictured: Elias Baker. (Photo by Matt Hagen / UW Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship)
Nanodropper
To make eye medications last longer and help consumers save money, UW students developed Nanodropper, a device that reduces the size of unnecessarily big eye droplets.
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Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering students Nikolas Ioannou and Sage Khanuja are the teenagers behind Spira, which debuted the text-based service. (Photo courtesy of Sage Khanuja)
Spira
Two University of Washington students released a SMS COVID-19 tracker and have plans for a coronavirus screening tool. Users will receive daily coronavirus updates, including information on deaths, cases, recoveries, and even reminders for hand washing and staying home.
Read storyInvestment and licensing opportunities
There are many ways to get involved as an investor. Visit CoMotion's website to learn how your involvement can help move innovations to impact.