UPenn Launches $10 Million StartUP Fund to Back Penn Spinouts as Philadelphia Startups Face a Capital Crunch
The University of Pennsylvania is expanding its role in the region’s innovation economy with a new $10 million seed fund aimed at one of the hardest moments in the startup journey: the gap between a breakthrough in the lab and a venture-backed company ready to scale. Penn’s new StartUP Fund will provide seed-stage investments of up to $250,000 for startups founded by Penn-affiliated faculty or researchers and based on Penn-developed technology, know-how, or ideas. The initiative lands amid fresh reporting on Philadelphia’s persistent shortage of local venture capital, a constraint that founders and investors say continues to push promising companies