University of New Mexico technology transfer office joins Innosphere Ventures’ University Partner Program

Friday March 26, 2021 Tags: Fort Collins, Innosphere Ventures, Mike Freeman

FORT COLLINS/ALBUQUERQUE -- Innosphere Ventures announced it is now partnering with UNM Rainforest Innovations to support the university’s economic development efforts and their vision to be an innovator in technology commercialization worldwide. 

Innosphere’s University Partner Program works directly with technology transfer offices at leading research universities across a multi-state region to connect inventors with business drivers, facilitate introductions to corporate partners, advance technologies to commercialization, and turn startups into high-growth businesses.

“An innovation ecosystem is only as strong as the people that make it up,” said Lisa Kuuttila, CEO and chief economic development officer at UNM Rainforest Innovations. 

“It’s a place where people with creative ideas, business insights, and those with the desire to facilitate change come together to nurture budding ideas into sustainable enterprises. When new partnerships are formed and collaboration is set in motion, our whole innovation ecosystem benefits.”

UNM Rainforest Innovations is the technology-transfer and economic-development organization for the University of New Mexico (UNM). Over the years, UNM Rainforest Innovations has evolved to provide services far beyond technology-transfer support and now spearheads UNM’s economic development initiatives. 

“We are happy to partner with Innosphere Ventures,” said Kuuttila. “This partnership is important to our mission of innovation because it facilitates more opportunities and expands collaborations within our ecosystem.”

“UNM Rainforest Innovations has always done a great job protecting technologies developed at UNM and transferring these technologies to the marketplace,” said Mike Freeman, Innosphere Ventures CEO. 

“We know that moving an invention from the lab to the marketplace and forming a successful company can be daunting, so Innosphere is excited to be one of the entrepreneurial resources that UNM offers to their technical founders and university faulty. 

“Working with New Mexico’s leading research university provides Innosphere’s commercialization program with high-quality deal flow and opportunities to work with their innovative programs.”

Innosphere currently has partnerships with the technology transfer offices at: Colorado State University (CSU Ventures), University of Colorado (Venture Partners at CU Boulder); Colorado School of Mines’ Office of Research and Technology Transfer; University of Nebraska (NUtech Ventures), Oklahoma State University (Cowboy Innovations and their startup support organization Cowboy Technologies), and the University of New Mexico (UNM Rainforest Innovations).

For more information on Innosphere Ventures’ University Partner Program, visit innosphereventures.org/partners or contact Freeman at 970-817-4791 or [email protected].