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Launched in 2018, Destination Startup® connects investors with groundbreaking startups built on novel discoveries from leading national labs and universities in the Intermountain West. Participating startups must be actively raising and are selected through a competitive review process and robust pitch preparation.

Renewable And Sustainable Energy Institute—A startup team led by RASEI Fellow Oana Luca, called Agami Zero, has just secured seed funding after winning the 2025 CU Lab Venture Challenge. Their winning idea? A new way to produce hydrogen fuel more efficiently, a key mechanism for decarbonizing our energy economy.

BizWest—Arpeggio Biosciences, a ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado startup that works in the development of pharmaceuticals, has raised about two-thirds of what it expects to collect in its latest investment offering.

OEDIT—The Global Business Development division of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade announced that five companies based on innovations from the ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado and one CU researcher have been awarded Proof of Concept and Early-Stage Capital and Retention grants through OEDIT’s Advanced Industries Accelerator Program.

CU Boulder Today—A team of ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado Boulder researchers is making reliable, inexpensive and easy-to-deploy sensors that monitor soil in real time and have formed a new startup, Tierra Metrics.

Eleven teams of ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado faculty, researchers and graduate student innovators competed for a combined $755,000 in startup funding grants in this year’s Lab Venture Challenge (LVC). Judges from CU's entrepreneurial network heard Shark-Tank-style pitches across two nights, one for innovations in biosciences and another for physical sciences and engineering.

VitriVax—³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado Boulder spinout VitriVax has raised $17.25 million in Series B financing to accelerate development of its Stablevaxâ„¢ platform, which eliminates the need for cold storage in vaccines. The funding will support preclinical and clinical advancement of single-dose, thermostable vaccines aimed at improving global immunization access.

Business Wire—VitriVax Inc., a ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado Boulder vaccine formulation technology spinout, today announced it has been awarded a two-year, $9.9 million grant from the Gates Foundation. The funding will support the scale-up of VitriVax’s Atomic Layering Thermostable Antigen and Adjuvant (ALTA®) technology, enabling Phase 1-ready GMP manufacturing and advancing the platform to prepare for Phase 1 clinical trials.

DARPA—CU Boulder startup Flari Tech was selected as a winner in DARPA’s Spark Tank competition, securing $400,000 in funding and direct engagement opportunities with program managers as it advances its next-generation technology.

ReviewerZero—A new partnership with Karger Publishers will accelerate their already strong research integrity strategy by giving the research integrity and publication ethics team access to the entire AI-powered suite by ReviewerZero, a ³Ô¹ÏÍø of Colorado Boulder startup founded by Daniel Acuña (CU Boulder Computer Science) in 2023.