UNC Launches New Research Venture Fund

UNC officials announced the formation of the Carolina Research Venture Fund, at a Board of Trustees meeting on Wednesday.

Board member Sallie Shuping-Russell, who is also a managing director at BlackRock – the world’s largest asset manager, made the announcement during an Innovation and Impact Committee meeting.

She says the purpose of the fund is to help startup companies get off the ground.

“It’s starting out, initially, with $5 million of non-state funds, and we’re hoping to grow that,” she says. “It takes a little money for that initial seed stage, so we wanted to go ahead and get this going.

“This will be enough to make a meaningful dent and start leveraging other players later on down the road.”

This fund will provide capital to bridge the “funding gap” between a startup company and the larger venture capital firms across the state and nation.

The announcement of this fund comes on the heels of Governor Pat McCrory pitching an idea to the UNC Board of Governors, last Friday, that would include more collaboration with the university system to provide more venture capital funds in the state.

Shuping-Russell says she was thrilled the timeline of this launch and the pitch from the governor lined up so well. She says this fund has been coming down the pipeline from Carolina.

“It is a culmination of many years of work by many people,” she says.

She notes it is also timely coming off of the $100 million gift from Fred Eshelman to the UNC School of Pharmacy to help fuel innovation.

The concept of this fund was originally approved in 2013, and the last year was spent going through the legal process setting up the fund, according to Shuping-Russell.

She says a third party will manage the Carolina Research Venture Fund.

“We are going to give funds to an external manager to direct this program,” she says. “Not, at all, unlike what the endowment and the investment funds do.”

That fund manager will work with a separate Board of Directors to determine the best use of these funds. The board will have no decision-making power. That authority will lie with the fund manager. But the board will be in place to offer guidance.