Los Alamos, venture capital firms join to spawn companies from lab know-how

摘要

The Energy Department's Los Alamos National Laboratory will work with two venture capital firms to use lab technology in creating new companies, adding to its commercialization efforts, officials said last week. Under the Los Alamos Venture Acceleration Initiative, or LAVA, the lab will share technologies with ARCH Venture Partners and Verge Fund with the aim of creating new businesses in New Mexico, home of the lab. Los Alamos National Security, the group that manages the lab, will provide $1 million over three years to cover overhead costs in starting the new companies. The funding will go toward paying a representative of the venture firms, as well as moving the technology to market. "It's going to support all the activities you can envision to basically identify the technology, do the market due diligence, mature it, and identify the team that is going to stand up the company and actually license the technology," according to Belinda Padilla, who runs the initiative for Los Alamos. "It is all the hands-on parts to nurture, to turn technologies into companies." The initiative is a pilot program, and Los Alamos plans to have a full-time representative of the venture capital firms in place at the lab by October 1. According to Clinton Bybee, a co-founder and managing director for ARCH Ventures, the firms are working together, and they will jointly hire someone to be at the lab full time.