Florida High Tech Corridor

Early Stage Innovation Fund

This program supports early-stage innovations and applied research with significant commercial potential. These funds are meant to seed USF-developed innovations that could lead to industry investment, start-up creation, and/or licensing opportunities. USF researchers may request up to $25,000 to support USF research expenses associated with the further development of the target innovation.

This program is designed to support innovations that have moved beyond the idea stage and have demonstrated some initial proof of concept or validation. However, they still require additional investment to further develop and achieve commercial viability.

Program Update: In collaboration with USF’s Tech Transfer Office, the Florida High Tech Corridor has restructured the Early-Stage Innovation Fund to ensure we continue to invest with impact and support innovations with the strongest commercial potential.

Letters of Intent are accepted on a rolling basis. Submit an LOI here: https://airtable.com/shrE87zKnQ8AXP1vn

Please Note: The technology central to the submission must be disclosed to the USF Tech Transfer Office via the the USF Inventor Portal prior to Letter of Intent submission.

The review committee meets periodically throughout the year (January, May & September subject to change) and invited proposals are presented to the review committee at the next available meeting.

Please review the program guidelines for more details on the updated processes and full proposal requirements.

Learn more about past awards provided through the Corridor Early-Stage Innovation Fund:

Corridor updates are regulary shared through the Research Investigators Listserv. To subscribe to that listserv, click here.