ABOUT

A Thriving Community of Innovative Startups

Mission

Since our founding in 2009, the Venture Development Center (VDC) at UMass Boston has provided essential support to launch and grow innovative technology and life science companies. We offer our members a broad range of supports to accelerate their companies’ achievements including visa sponsorship, and access to business advisory services, scientific and technological expertise, state-of-the-art instrumentation, cutting-edge laboratories, well-equipped office space, and additional resources.
  • To begin, if you are from another country, we relieve your immigration anxiety by sponsoring a cap-exempt H-1B visa anytime during the year.
  • To help you build your business, we give you unprecedented access to a team that has been part of creating companies worth a billion dollars as both investors and entrepreneurs.
  • And to make you productive, we provide top-tier, ready to use laboratory and office workspace.
  • Plus, to stretch your resources, we help you find talented and skilled science, engineering and business interns and give you access to many types of advanced university engineering and life science instruments including an animal facility.

Most companies arrive at the seed stage and graduate in 9-18 months with a larger investment.

RESULTS

The VDC’s offering has proven to be rewarding.

  • New companies supported: 116, with at least one immigrant, woman, and/or minority member in the founding team.
  • Investment: $2.0B
  • Company headcount: 2,725 employees
  • Investors: 132, including 5 of the top 10 venture capital firms
  • Acquisitions: $1.5B (PillPack by Amazon; Kensho by S&P; enEvolv by Zymergen)
  • IPOs: $321M (SQZ Biotech; Flywire)

Community

Today, there are 16 companies (~50 persons) in residence.

  • Industries are healthcare, biopharma, medical device, finance, software, electronics and nanotech.
  • Company size ranges from 3-10 employees.
  • Founder origin: 5 continents and 14 universities, including UMass, Cornell, Rhode Island School of Design, Boston University, Northeastern, Yale, Harvard, MIT, Columbia, Stanford and Carnegie Mellon

MEMBERSHIP

  • Become part of a thriving community of some of the best and brightest entrepreneurial talent in the world.
  • We accept 10-15 companies annually on a rolling basis.
  • The month-to-month membership fee depends upon the type of facilities you need: laboratory, office or desk.