Launching Dreams: UT Helps Entrepreneurs from Ideation to Realization

Technology entrepreneurs with big ideas for new businesses can turn their dreams into reality at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. UT is creating and growing tech-based companies right here in East Tennessee, strengthening our regional economy and creating good jobs that support families.

"As Tennessee's land-grant research institution, we are all about speeding the transfer of UT technologies out of our research labs and into the marketplace," said Deb Crawford, UT's vice chancellor for research, innovation, and economic development. "Sometimes the best way to do that is by launching and supporting the growth of high-tech start-ups. And, of course, the success of these start-ups depends upon the entrepreneurial skills of their founders."

Budding tech entrepreneurs can tap a number of resources at UT, including the Knoxville satellite of the I-Corps Mid-South Hub, a program funded by the National Science Foundation to help faculty and student researchers fine-tune their entrepreneurial acumen; the start-up incubator and accelerator programs offered by the UT-supported Spark Innovation Center; and entrepreneurship resources provided by UT's Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Tech founders can access the university's state-of-the-art research capabilities to minimize risk and attract investors.

Growing high-tech businesses in Tennessee is crucial for the state's long-term economic growth, noted Marc Gibson, UT's associate vice chancellor for partnerships and economic development.

"The most vibrant regional economies in the US are those with higher concentrations of tech-intensive firms," he said. "For every one job created in these companies, another two jobs are created in their value chains. And the jobs they support are high-paying jobs."

I-Corps: Helping Entrepreneurs Commercialize Technology

UT has partnered with Vanderbilt University, Tennessee State University, Meharry Medical College, and other universities in the mid-South region to provide faculty and students with I-Corps training on how to be successful tech entrepreneurs.

The I-Corps Mid-South Hub is the focus of Rob Coleman, UT's director of entrepreneurship and new ventures, and Marc Nabhan, assistant director of entrepreneurship and new ventures.

"We want to get our faculty and student researchers thinking about their customers' needs," Coleman said. "Our research goal at UT is to make life and lives better, and what better way to do that than to take UT technologies and use them to create solutions that help people?"

UT has now taken three I-Corps groups through the three-week training program, with a fourth going through the program this fall. Nabhan, who joined the university in July, has firsthand experience with the I-Corps program.

"I-Corps is helping entrepreneurs successfully commercialize their technologies," said Nabhan, who has a Ph.D. in chemical engineering from Vanderbilt and co-founded a medical device start-up in 2022. "I'm a scientist by training, and I know there's amazing research being done in our labs. Now we are using I-Corps to help ensure that the research outcomes we generate reach the market through the formation and growth of new Tennessee companies."

Chancellor's Innovation Fund: Moving Faculty Ideas to Market

Coleman and Nabhan also oversee the Chancellor's Innovation Fund, created to help faculty and student entrepreneurs develop their technologies to attract early-stage capital investments.

Fourteen UT teams applied for support from the Chancellor's Innovation Fund in its inaugural competition, which took place in 2023–24. Eight semifinalists were invited to participate in a Shark Tank–style pitch competition, where they described the commercial potential of their technologies and how a Chancellor's Innovation Fund investment would help propel those technologies to market.

Judges from Knoxville's entrepreneur and venture capital community selected five winning teams that each received $50,000 to help them refine their technologies, develop prototypes, and conduct viability testing over the following year.

Jian Huang, a professor in the Tickle College of Engineering, and his students work in the fields of visualization, big data, and cloud computing. They coined the term visualization as a service, or VaaS, and are using their Chancellor's Innovation Fund award to create intelligent VaaS that generates analysis and visualization apps for customers who need to use big data but cannot afford to hire their own data scientists.

"The Chancellor's Innovation Fund helps our faculty and students develop technology prototypes for validation testing," Coleman explained. "It's about getting their ideas into physical and testable solutions, and to move inventions closer to the market."

In the 2024–25 competition, the number of applicants has almost doubled—to 23—and eight semifinalists will pitch their ideas to judges in November. Nabhan has been coaching them on "how to put on an entrepreneurial hat," he said. The five recipients will be announced in February 2025.

Spark Innovation Center: Growing Tech Companies in East Tennessee

The Spark Innovation Center is headquartered in the UT Research Park at Cherokee Farm.

"The Spark Innovation Center is here to advance tech companies, to encourage them to locate, stay, and grow here in East Tennessee," said Lilly Tench, director of the center. "We have an amazing depth of tech-based R&D resources in our region, including at UT, Oak Ridge National Lab, and the Tennessee Valley Authority, among others."

The Spark Innovation Center provides something tech start-ups typically need: access to available and reasonably priced laboratory space, prototyping shops, and talent—including top-notch mentors in business model development, financial planning, and investor readiness. Since 2020, the Spark Innovation Center has offered two programs for tech-based founders: the 12-week Spark Accelerator Program and the two-year Spark Incubator Program.

Initially funded by the US Department of Energy, the Spark Cleantech Accelerator invites up to six start-ups a year to send a representative to live and work in Knoxville for 12 weeks. Participants develop local partnerships and refine their business models. They attend training workshops in areas like financial modeling and product development, producing a deliverable for each.

The six companies selected by Spark are joined by the new class of Innovation Crossroads Fellows at Oak Ridge National Lab, resulting in a strong group of 10 to 15 start-ups working side-by-side through the 12-week period. Thirty founders have gone through the program to date. They represent companies like AluminAiry, founded by UT Ph.D. students Brian Washington and Colt Griffith, which focuses on commercializing aluminum-air batteries.

Spark selects advanced tech companies that align with UT's five innovation gateways: materials and manufacturing, artificial intelligence, energy and environment, future mobility, and human health and wellness, Tench noted.

"If there are companies that need hands-on support, we can provide that," she said. "And while they are here in the Knoxville metro, we help them form relationships with other entities in the region, embedding them in our innovation ecosystem and giving them reason to stay here after the accelerator program is over."

The Spark Incubator Program goes a step further, providing physical laboratory space for start-ups as well as support for business model development. The program provides introductions to early-stage investors and connections with top UT researchers as well as entrepreneurial service providers and established companies in the region. Participants have included local trailblazers such as Orion Therapeutics out of UT, developing next-generation RNA medicines, and SkyNano out of Vanderbilt University and Innovation Crossroads, transforming captured C0₂ into carbon nanomaterials for consumer goods.

"Most of the companies we're working with have created high-paying jobs here in the region," Tench said. "So far, the 40 companies we have supported have created more than 100 full-time jobs, raised more than $90 million, and provided more than 50 UT student interns with hands-on experience in a start-up. There's huge potential for job growth and economic development in the tech sector. Not only is entrepreneurship one way of translating research out of the lab into the real world, but it's helping determine what's next in the economic trajectory of our region."

UT Research Foundation: Managing Intellectual Property

To be eligible to compete for the Chancellor's Innovation Fund or the I-Corps Mid-South Hub program, UT faculty and students must have an invention disclosure on file with the University of Tennessee Research Foundation. UTRF, which is celebrating its 90th anniversary this year, manages intellectual property for the entire UT System.

"We are a connector within the UT innovation ecosystem and a bridge between the university and the business and investment community," said UTRF President Maha Krishnamurthy, noting that UTRF works with UT faculty, staff, and students. "We meet with researchers and help them think through market needs and identify the problem their technology solution is trying to solve, and we license UT intellectual property to industry, including the start-ups that spin out of the university."

UTRF supports UT's entrepreneurial culture and offers everything from a pre-seed/seed venture fund, which invests in early-stage UT companies with a vision for growth, to an Entrepreneurial Fellows program that supports postgraduate fellows whose technologies need further development to be viable in the marketplace.

"Earlier this year, UTRF's Accelerate Fund did its first pre-seed investment of $150,000 in Orion Therapeutics Inc.," Krishnamurthy said. "This start-up is one of the Spark companies that developed a lipid nanoparticle platform that is highly versatile, distinguishing itself from conventional RNA delivery methods. The Accelerate Fund's mission is to invest in great ideas and build a reputation for UT and UTRF by investing in tech-based companies that other investors want to follow."

Alumnus Tanner Hobson (BS '17, Ph.D. '23) is UTRF's first Entrepreneurial Fellow. Hobson, who works in the lab of inaugural Chancellor's Innovation Fund recipient Jian Huang, has developed an AI-driven visualization and big data analytics product that facilitates health care claim reimbursements, improving operating margins. Hobson and Huang have also formed a start-up company, Visualiz-AI, and filed a license with UTRF.

"The true metric of tech transfer is the number of individuals impacted. I am very proud we had 170 invention disclosures in FY2024," Krishnamurthy said.

"Innovation is truly everywhere at UT," she added. "Facilities Services came up with a better way to mow the lawn, and we licensed that technology. The entrepreneurial culture is as good as it ever has been at UT, with the university community working together to support and grow that culture."

Sidebar: Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation

The Anderson Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation is a campus-wide resource dedicated to fostering a culture of entrepreneurial training and instruction built on experiential learning opportunities, entrepreneurial research, and mentorship resources that enable UT entrepreneurs to successfully start and grow new businesses.

Anderson Center startup coaches provide coaching and support to participants in the I-Corps program, the Chancellor's Innovation Fund, and the Spark Cleantech Accelerator.

In the spring of 2025, UT's Haslam College of Business will launch a new two-course sequence to guide graduate students through the process of assessing the business potential of commercializing technology and the intricacies of launching a new venture. Those new efforts will be led by the college's Department of Management and Entrepreneurship in collaboration with the Anderson Center and will feature a variety of classes including Technology Commercialization, Customer Discovery, and SBIRs and Capital Funding Sources.

Provided by University of Tennessee at Knoxville