Proof of Concept Investment : Criteria

Selection Criteria

The POCi is an investment program, unlike a research grant. The POCi funding is intended to help advance promising technologies toward successful commercialization. Applicants should stress the economic potential of the technology and how the POCi funds would contribute to the commercial development of the technology.

Key questions to consider include:

• What are the commercial applications for the technology? What is the size of the market? What are the market trends?
• What is the technical merit of the invention and the current state of development?
• Is the invention a disruptive technology that provides a new method of solving a problem or addressing a market need? What are the competitive advantages of the technology? How sustainable are those advantages?
• Is the company likely to establish a strong proprietary intellectual property position with this discovery? What is the patent or patent application status? Will the company likely be free to practice the invention or would commercialization require additional licenses from other companies or institutions?
• How would the POCi funds be applied to advance the technical or scientific aspects of the invention? What specific experiments or product development activities would be enabled by the POCi investment? How would those results affect the commercial viability of the invention?
• Is there a management team in place or a business person associated with the company or project? If not, what is the plan for recruiting qualified management by the time of the Investment Advisory Committee presentation?

Investment Advisory Committees and Selection Process

POCi applications are judged on the value proposition for the use of the funds, in terms of validating the technology and commercial opportunity and moving the technology to a defined next stage of development and proof of concept. The applications are reviewed by an Investment Advisory Committee (IAC) whose focus is on either life science or physical science/IT technologies. Members of the IAC are venture capitalists with considerable investment experience in these areas. The applications are reviewed in light of the selection criteria, and finalists are selected for oral presentations to the relevant IAC. In addition to the IAC members, observers from TTO will also attend the presentations. The POCi recipients are determined after the oral presentations. The final step in the process is the approval of the POCi investments by the Board of Directors of University License Equity Holdings, Inc. (ULEHI).

Deadline: Applications are due by October 12, 2007. Applications received after midnight MST on October 12, 2007 will not be considered.

Submission process: In order to successfully submit your application, the following steps are required:

1. Review the Selection Criteria.
2. Download this POCi Application Template and complete the template as your application(the instructions can be removed).
3. Send an email to TTO Database Administrator Nathan Chen and attach the completed application template to the email. Please also include your contact information in the email.

NOTE:  The POCi proposal will be maintained as confidential information by TTO, except for a nonconfidential executive summary.