The UT Board of Regents voted Thursday to approve the creation of a $2M fund to help encourage commercial development of innovative ideas at all 15 UT System institutions. Grants will be given in amounts up to $50,000. The program is designed to complement other Texas economic development efforts; the Emerging Technology Fund (ETF) and the Texas Enterprise Fund.

While $2M total, and $50,000 per idea seems like a small amount for an institution with a multi billion dollar endowment, it’s generally the early stage seed money that is hard to come by. This might be just the right amount of money to get an idea from a lab in the UT System to a viable demo, beta test, or prototype. That is when more traditional means of investment can come into play.

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