The University of Pennsylvania recently launched a new $10 million fund to help support startups founded by researchers at the school, writes John George for the Philadelphia Business Journal.
The new StartUP Fund will join a number of other startup initiatives that Penn has already established over the years.
It will be managed by the Penn’s Office of the Chief Innovation Officer.
According to Penn, the university has supported the creation of 325 different startups since 2013. Collectively, those companies have gone on to raise or receive more than $7.5 billion in investment funding.
David Meaney, Penn’s vice provost for research, said the StartUP Fund is designed to address the “critical” need for seed investment capital at the earliest stages of company formation.
He called capital a “key funding gap in the innovation ecosystem.”
The university added that any returns that the StartUP Fund realized with then be reinvested into the fund.
Companies looking to apply must be based on Penn technology, know-how, or ideas, and have a minimum of one Penn-affiliated faculty member or researcher that is also a company founder.
Read more about Penn’s new StartUP Fund and how it will support Penn founders in the Philadelphia Business Journal.
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Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on PHILADELPHIA.Today in December 2025.
