Annual Report 2023

Content

INTRODUCTION

Letter from the Managing Director

It’s my privilege to introduce our first Annual Report since the launch of Yale Ventures in 2022. Our inaugural year has been one of transformation and collaboration. We launched new programs and partnerships, deepened our engagement with innovation partners across the University and the state, and convened events to catalyze our growing entrepreneurship and innovation ecosystem.

New gifts have allowed Yale Ventures to expand our Innovation Programs and accelerator funds, supporting Yale faculty with mentorship, business training, and non-dilutive funding. The Blavatnik Fund for Innovation completed its 6th round of awards and The Roberts Innovation Fund launched, drawing wide interest across Yale Engineering faculty, and made its first round of awards. The Colton Center for Autoimmunity at Yale gift was increased to fund a staff director that will enable expanded support for investigators pursuing autoimmune disorders.

Tsai CITY sprung to life in its first full year of operations free of pandemic-related restrictions offering expanded programming for students. For faculty, we launched Venture Labs, hosting 22 workshops drawing 60 volunteer industry mentors, as a new hub of support for Yale investigators to access mentorship, guidance, and potential investors.    

We expanded our Community and Events and increased our outreach, engaging with greater numbers of Yale and Connecticut innovators. We hosted several new events, including Yale’s first-ever Faculty Innovation Awards, the diverse-founder-focused Innovators Ignite, and established a networking series for Connecticut entrepreneurs, Collaborative CT. We expanded the Life Sciences Pitchfest, and the student-focused Startup Yale, engaging with early-stage faculty and student startups, awarding non-dilutive prize funding. Over 2,100 people attended the dramatically expanded Yale Innovation Summit.  

This year we announced major changes to the university's practice of the distribution of income from IP & licensing activities, directing all income from new technologies to the investors and academic units responsible for the invention. We also introduced a new startup license to streamline the licensing process for Yale innovators, especially for early-stage and software-enabled spinouts.

Our Corporate Strategy and Engagement office expanded Yale's strong collaborations with major alliance partners and participated in several successful business recruitment efforts to attract new bioscience companies and incubators to the region. 

As a result of all of this work, we enjoyed double-digit increases in new invention disclosures, patent filings, new technology licenses, and sponsored research funding, and even maintained the number of newly funded Yale startups despite a very challenging year in the venture financing markets.  Most importantly, I hear almost every day from students, faculty, alumni, and community partners that they are more excited than ever about the momentum in the Yale innovation ecosystem.  

While I am encouraged by our progress in FY '23, there is so much more to do. On behalf of the entire team at Yale Ventures, thank you for your support. 

Josh Geballe  

Managing Director, Yale Ventures   
Senior Associate Provost for Entrepreneurship, Yale University

Our Mission 

Helping develop innovations that impact the world's greatest challenges.

FY 2023 At a glance

Invention & Patent Activity

Sponsored Research

 “Yale is a great place to be both an academic and an innovator at the same time. I feel very much supported to pursue my dreams in both of these orbits.” 

—Akiko Iwasaki, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology & 3x Founder, Rigimmune, PanV, Xanadu Bio

ACCELERATOR

The Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale

Accelerating the translation of early-stage life science research into impactful products. 

We are grateful for this award as it will provide Playbl critical opportunities to move our company forward and amplify our efforts to target the most significant health issues impacting adolescents related to mental health, substance misuse, and sexual health so that they can live happier and healthier lives. 

Dr. Lynn Fiellin, Professor of General Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and founder of Playbl, a spinout from the play2PREVENT lab at Yale that develops evidence-based digital health games. Dr. Fiellin is a 2023 Yale-Blavatnik award recipient. 

HIGHLIGHTED NEWS

ACCELERATOR

The Roberts Innovation Fund

Accelerating the engine of innovation at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science

The large number of excellent proposals that have been developed by our faculty clearly illustrate the pent-up demand for these opportunities. Yale’s Engineering faculty have always generated a wealth of great research, and now we have a strong mechanism to take their breakthrough technologies from the lab to market. 

Jeff Brock, Dean of Yale Engineering 

HIGHLIGHTED NEWS

ACCELERATOR

The Colton Center for Autoimmunity

Advancing innovative and translational research in autoimmune and allergic diseases.

These outstanding Yale faculty are driven to generate impact and develop their research into substantial innovations that will benefit society, and we are thrilled the Colton Center for Autoimmunity at Yale has the ability to move these projects forward. 

Dr. Joseph Craft, Faculty Scientific Director for The Colton Center 

HIGHLIGHTED NEWS

INNOVATION CENTER: STUDENTS & FACULTY

The Center for Biomedical Innovation and Technology (CBIT)

Catalyzing innovators across Yale’s campus to make novel healthcare solutions in data science, diagnostics, and devices a reality.

INNOVATION CENTER: STUDENTS 

The Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking

Inspiring students from diverse backgrounds and disciplines to seek innovative ways to solve real-world problems.

We will continue to create a culture at Tsai CITY where curious students of diverse backgrounds and disciplines find a home at Yale for exploration and innovative problem-solving.

Clare Leinweber, Executive Director, Tsai Center for Innovative Thinking at Yale

HIGHLIGHTED NEWS

INNOVATION PROGRAM: FACULTY 

Venture Lab

Accelerating faculty founders with expert mentorship.

Venture Lab isn’t just for an academic PI who has never done a startup—it's a resource that clearly should be tapped by anyone thinking of any type of startup at most stages. It’s unique at Yale as an infrastructure to start spinning out more companies at a higher velocity which is the best way to translate some of the best science at Yale.

Dr. Ranjit Bindra, Venture Lab participant  

HIGHLIGHTED NEWS

INNOVATION PROGRAM: FACULTY 

amplifyHERscience

Supporting and promoting diversity, equity, and inclusion in science and entrepreneurial pursuits.

Initiatives like amplifyHERscience are important because they teach women business thinking and provide representation that proves that women too can be entrepreneurs. This type of training will also help me serve as a mentor for my students, to bolster their voices and to help them optimize Yale’s resources.

Barbara Ehrlich, PhD, Yale School of Medicine

HIGHLIGHTED NEWS

Yale's technology transfer office is responsible for protecting and licensing the intellectual property (IP) developed at Yale, helping to commercialize breakthroughs to market as products and services that can make a difference in the world.  This year we announced major changes to the university practice of distribution of income from licensing activities, now directing all income from new technologies to the investors and academic units responsible for the invention, aligning incentives, improving positioning vs. peers, and sending an important message that Yale fully supports real-world application of our discoveries to improve humanity.  We also introduced a new startup license to support Yale innovators, especially early-stage and software-enabled spinouts. 

2022-2023 HIGHLIGHTS

SPINOUT NEWS

Yale Ventures leads the University’s approach to corporate partnerships through the Corporate Strategy and Engagement Office (CSEO); working to develop private and industry sector connections and collaborations in support of Yale research and educational missions. This year, the Corporate Strategy and Engagement Office (CSEO) expanded Yale's industry collaborations, developed new models for working with industry, and added several new team members to build the foundation for significant growth in industry partnerships. This year it deepened its engagement with faculty and led new models for working with industry, such as managing a BI Fellowship, building the YCNCC Corporate Roundtable, and added a YSM Hybrid Decentralization Consortium. Looking forward to FY 23 and beyond, CSEO will continue to drive both direct business development and work in collaboration with colleagues across campus to advance critical strategies, models, and policies to support effective corporate engagement on campus with a focus on projects and prospects in health and life sciences, planetary solutions, and engineering/data science.

FROM OUR PARTNERS

Boehringer Ingelheim drives innovation including our strong collaboration with Yale University to advance cutting-edge technologies and scientific research in multiple therapeutic areas and development disciplines. Together, we develop novel methods to gain insights into complex biomedical datasets. Overall, innovations in drug development hold great promise for improving patient outcomes and quality of life and are likely to play an increasingly important role in the future of healthcare. —Xiorong He, Site Head of Development US and Head of Global Development Sciences, Boehringer Ingelheim 

Yale Ventures expanded our events and increased our outreach, engaging with greater numbers of Yale and Connecticut innovators. We hosted several new events, including Yale’s first-ever Faculty Innovation Awards, the diverse-founder-focused Innovators Ignite, and expanded a networking series for Connecticut entrepreneurs, Collaborative CT. We grew the Life Sciences Pitchfest, and the student-focused Startup Yale hosted by Tsai CITY, engaging with early-stage faculty and student startups, and awarding non-dilutive prize funding. Over 2,100 people attended the dramatically expanded Yale Innovation Summit.  

We have deepened our support of the innovation community across greater New Haven and Connecticut as well, successfully assisting successful business recruitment efforts to attract new bioscience companies and incubators to the region. Most significantly, we catalyzed the creation of ClimateHaven, a new non-profit incubator for climate technology startups, through the leadership of several Yale Ventures teammates and a generous seed donation from the university.  We have also dramatically increased our efforts to highlight Yale and community success stories through our expanding communication channels and a newly relaunched website.  

Innovation Events

INNOVATION COMMUNITY

STORIES & HIGHLIGHTS