News Release
Thirteen UC San Diego Startups Present at National CTO Forum
November 05, 2014 -- Thirteen startups from across the University of California, San Diego are presenting their work to CTOs and CIOs from around the nation this week, as part of a CTO Forum event. The UC San Diego startups are part of a larger group of 24 startups from the University of California system that are participating in the CTO Forum event.
“The CTO Forum is providing a fantastic networking opportunity for startups and leaders in industry and academia. It’s great to have so many decision makers from large companies in the same place at the same time,” said Jason Oberg in an email from the conference. Oberg is a co-founder and CEO of Tortuga Logic, a UC San Diego startup focused on the security of computer hardware. He recently completed his computer science Ph.D. at UC San Diego.
“It’s great to see the enthusiastic response from all of the UC startups in particular from UC San Diego. The quality of the technology and the teams are testimony to the entrepreneurial talent at our university,” said Rosibel Ochoa, Senior Executive Director, Entrepreneurism and Leadership Programs at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering.
Ochoa also serves as Executive Director of the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center at the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering, which has provided entrepreneurism mentoring, education and funding to many of the UC San Diego startups participating in the event.
The event offers access to over 100 CTOs and CIOs from top companies and the opportunity to compete for venture capital funding. The first, second and third place startups will be offered funding from Vertical Venture Partners or the Triton Technology Fund, both of which were created by a group of UC San Diego alumni led by David Schwab (B.A. ’79, Applied Sciences).
The 13 startups from UC San Diego include a strong showing from the UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering. Nearly all of the UC San Diego startups have benefitted from support from the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center at UC San Diego.
“What I found most valuable about the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center is the team of advisors and mentors who guided me throughout the process of commercialization and analyzing market traction for the technologies that I was researching at the time,” said Electrozyme co-founder and CEO Joshua Windmiller in a recent video produced by the von Liebig Entrepreneurism Center. Windmiller earned his NanoEngineering Ph.D. at UC San Diego in 2013.
Mechanical engineering alumnus Neal Bloom (B.S. ’08) and structural engineering alumnus Adam Markowitz (B.S. '08) attended the CTO Forum, representing Portfolium. Bloom is a co-founder and Chief Business Development Officer and Markowitz is a co-founder and CEO. Portfolium is an online platform that empowers students and recent graduates to truly show their projects, rather than just list them out. “We were thrilled to see other UC San Diego-related startups from our incubator EvoNexus including nPruv, Electrozyme, and Skylit,” said Bloom. “Once we arrived, it was really empowering to see such a large group of the startups coming out of UC San Diego.” CEO of Portfolium, Adam Markowitz, attended as well and was a UCSD Structural Engineer '08
The announcement of the winning teams is likely to be made next week, according to Schwab.
UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering Startups at the CTO Forum
Electrozyme
Electrochemical sensors capable of acquiring relevant metabolic information form a wearer’s skin in a non-invasive, non-obtrusive, and cost-effective manner.
related link: Electrozyme’s metabolism-monitoring temp tattoos backed by Mark Cuban
related link: cover image of Jacobs School of Engineering alumni magazine (PDF)
Groll Tex
Groll Tex is bringing production scale graphene to market.
related link: UCSD “Entrepreneur Challenge” Awards Top Honors to DevaNano, GrollTex
Portfolium
An academic e-portfolio network for millennials across all fields of study to visually showcase their work, projects and skills to employers and hiring managers.
related link: Portfolium video on UC San Diego alumni website
related link: Recent Seed Round Raised by Portfolium Puts EvoNexus Startups at $573 Million in Combined Funding to Date
Sonrgy
Biotechnology company using focused ultrasound to localize the release of chemotherapies. It uses nanocarriers much smaller than human cells to bring chemotherapy agents through the patient's circulation system to the tumor. The physician then points ultrasound waves to the tumor to release the chemotherapy, maximizing the treatment's effect in that region.
related link: How an Entrepreneurial Engineering Education Nurtured a Biotech Startup
Tortuga Logic
(collaboration between UC San Diego, UC Santa Barbara)
Securing computing systems from the ground up by building safer, more secure hardware.
related link: Computer scientists develop tool to make the Internet of Things safer
Other UC San Diego startups
nPruv
Health IT company enabling a new era of predictive modeling for clinical trial patient matching and recruitment.
Pareto Biotechnologies
UC San Diego, UC Irvine
Proprietary biological and chemical technologies to generate chemical products. The downstream chemistry technology will enable generating commodity chemicals with fewer unit operations for improved efficiency
Symbiox
A novel approach for tissue regeneration: a photosynthetic scaffold technology that provides physicians with next-generation tools for the treatment, functional restoration, and healing of damaged or diseased tissues
Companion Medical
Medical devices to improve insulin therapy for diabetics
Skylit Medical
Personal UVB Light Therapy Device to treat Psoriasis and Eczema
Media Contacts
Daniel Kane
Jacobs School of Engineering
858-534-3262
dbkane@ucsd.edu