Academic Innovation Catalyst (AIC) aims to unlock more academic innovation in deep technology fields for positive social impact. AIC offers early-stage, proof-of-concept grant and equity funding and hands-on support to academic innovators to explore “beyond the lab” applications of promising discoveries. These funds are intended to advance the exploration of pathways to commercialization, rather than to support foundational research.

AIC seeks to act as a “force multiplier” for existing entrepreneurial programs, incubators, and accelerators associated with R1 Research Institutions. AIC has already established partnerships with the Bakar Fellows Program, the largest proof-of-concept funding platform at UC Berkeley, CITRIS and the Banatao Institute, a University of California research center focused on creating IT solutions that generate societal and economic benefits for everyone, and the College of Computing, Data Science and Society (CDSS).

AIC believes that supporting academic innovators in this way is a win for the innovators themselves, a win for their affiliated institutions (and academic research institutions generally), and a win for the world.