The Innovation Venture Fund provides seed capital to help especially promising NYU founders scale their startups. Together with co-investors, the philanthropic evergreen fund provides needed capital, contacts with the entrepreneurial and venture communities, and practical management and marketing coaching to help NYU students, faculty and researchers transform ideas and inventions into startups.
NYU’s pre/seed-stage venture capital fund invests exclusively in startups founded by, and/or commercializing technologies, innovations and intellectual property developed by, current NYU students, faculty, and researchers.
Learn more about our investment criteria below.
To request a meeting with our team and be considered for funding, submit a venture profile.
Submit Profile
Founded in 2010, the NYU Innovation Venture Fund provides seed capital to scale startups based on technologies, innovations and intellectual property developed by students, faculty, and researchers while at NYU. The Fund provides needed capital, contacts with the entrepreneurial and venture communities, and just as important, practical management and marketing coaching to transform NYU ideas and inventions into successful startups.
The Fund makes approximately three to four investments per year in partnership with other angel and venture capital investors. The Fund will recycle investment returns from the successful sale of portfolio companies back into the University to finance future ventures.
This opportunity is open to startups founded by current students, faculty, and researchers at any NYU school, college, or institute.
The Fund seeks early-stage businesses with inventions, discoveries, products or services that were developed in whole or in part at NYU, that have achieved proof of concept (or a prototype) and are ready for scaling commercial product development and/or customer acquisition. The fund does not invest in projects requiring further basic research.
The Fund will consider proposals using the following evaluation criteria:
Don’t worry if you don’t know if you meet all the criteria laid out above. We will help you more fully assess the merits of your opportunity and connect you with the resources you need to progress your venture. Please reach out to us if you’re considering raising seed capital.
BioDigital was founded on the premise that 3D technology will transform the way we understand the human body. Allowing people to see inside the body, using interactive 3D technology, promises to have a profound impact on the way we comprehend our health.
A female-founded company with a mission to build a rigorous and creative online coding experience that appeals to all students. Vidcode is a 3rd-12th grade web-based JavaScript platform that teaches coding through media computation. Today, Vidcode is used by over a million students all over the world.
Clarifai’s powerful image and video recognition solutions are built on the most advanced machine learning platform, and made easily accessible via API, device SDK, and on-premise, empowering businesses all over the world to build a new generation of intelligent applications.
CytoDel, Inc., is a biopharmaceutical company developing a platform based on recombinant derivatives of botulinum neurotoxin (BoNT). This platform enables two pipeline programs. The first uses atoxic derivatives of BoNT to create antibody fusion proteins that deliver their antibody cargo to the INSIDE of neurons. These BoNT-based molecular delivery vehicles have been shown to safely inactivate intra-neuronal targets in three species. The second program is developing pharmaceutically active BoNT derivatives to address unmet needs in the current $4B market for BoNT pharmaceuticals.
She Matters trains healthcare workers in culturally competent care for Black women and offers an online platform to support Black women who experience postpartum comorbidities (e.g., anxiety and/or depression) through community and culturally relevant resources
Offering affordable, deconstructable, and stylish furniture for modern and transient living with a focus on financial flexibility. Through a buy-back program, Sabai Design solves the headache of disposal/reselling and offers an even cheaper line of refurbished furniture.
Rilla provides conversation intelligence software for outside sales and service. Industries such as roofing, solar, interior design, banking, and telco send sales representatives to talk to potential customers face to face in their homes and businesses. Rilla uses AI to automatically transcribe, analyze and give feedback to sales managers on their representatives’ performance with customers, enabling them to remotely monitor their teams, saving two to three days a week from having to accompany field sales reps on training calls.
Perioperative team collaboration platform to intended to prove patient care that captures lessons, notes, and feedback after procedures and drives continuous improvement, helping surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, and other surgical stakeholders in fast and efficient coordination and collaboration from pre-op to post-op, while automating administrative tasks.
To be considered, please carefully read the submission criteria and fill out a Venture Profile using the prompts below. Keep in mind this is intended to provide a preliminary overview of your concept and that an investment decision will not be made based solely upon the content of your profile.
New Venture Concept
Technology and Intellectual Property (IP)
Business Model
Competitive Analysis
Regulatory Pathways (if applicable)
Management Team
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