Director's Message: Celebrating a Year of Innovative Growth at INVO

 Innovation and entrepreneurship (I&E) is one of the most visible ways our faculty, students, researchers, and alumni demonstrate Northwestern’s impact on the world. Woven into every part of campus, I&E has become an unmistakable component of our University’s identity.  The Innovation and New Ventures Office (INVO) is proud to play a central role — home to the technology transfer operations for the University and two thriving hubs for entrepreneurship, The Garage and the newly launched Querrey InQbation Lab.  

This year’s Annual Report provides us the opportunity to look both back and towards the future, celebrating milestones and applying the lessons learned to enable the next generation. FY2023 was marked by many highlights, including:

• Ten years of our University-wide startup competition, VentureCat. Over the last decade, VentureCat companies have raised over $1B in follow-on funding and created more than 2,600 jobs. 
• The strength of Northwestern research-based startups during this past year’s tough fundraising climate. SIA Health was acquired by Integra LifeSciences and Minute Molecular Diagnostics by Nuclein, and we saw many of our Chicagoland startups raise healthy, often oversubscribed rounds such as COUR Pharmaceuticals ($30M financing), Dimension Inx ($12M Series A), Mattiq ($15M seed), Nanograf ($65M Series B), and Rhaeos ($10.5 Series A) amongst others.  
• The official opening in downtown Evanston of the Querrey InQbation Lab, our new hub for research-based entrepreneurship. With support from the state, the University, and a generous gift from Kimberly Querrey, the chair of the Board of Trustees’ Innovation and Entrepreneurship committee, the InQbation Lab is already home to 12 startups and has allowed us to introduce a wide range of programming with partners such as our Research Institutes and Centers, Kellogg, Northwestern Medicine, and many others. 

This year is my first as Associate Vice President for Innovation and New Ventures but my seventh year at INVO. It is my privilege to continue to collaborate with talented and dedicated colleagues as we strengthen and expand the support and resources for innovators at Northwestern.

Enjoy the summaries and various snapshots of programs, companies, and people in this year’s Annual Report. As always, do not hesitate to reach out!