🔒Yale Ventures reshapes university’s tech transfer efforts, expands startup pipeline

Given how much Yale Ventures has grown in its first four years, its physical footprint is surprisingly small. The organization’s headquarters at 101 College St. in New Haven spans just 6,100 square feet — about 1% of the recently built 525,000-square-foot life sciences building. But its reach extends far beyond that space. Launched in April 2022 by Yale University, the organization helps faculty and students turn research into startups while overseeing technology transfer, intellectual property licensing and industry partnerships. It has already spun out 51 bioscience companies that have secured more than $15 million in grants and leveraged that funding to raise more than $600 million. Shepherding the organization is Josh Geballe, who has served as managing director since Yale Ventures’ launch. He previously spent two years as the state’s chief operating officer under Gov. Ned Lamont. Before that, Geballe, a Yale alum and former lecturer, served three years as commissioner of the state Department of Administrative Services. His private-sector experience includes 11 years at IBM, four years as CEO of Branford-based data management firm Core Informatics, and a year as vice president and general manager of the digital science business unit at Thermo Fisher Scientific, also in Branford.

Geballe, who holds an MBA from the Yale School of Management, describes his background as science “adjacent.” “Before I went to work for the state, I ran a software company that did scientific informatics,” he said. “So we were selling into the biotech industry.” At Yale Ventures, he said he has built a team with deep technical expertise, including staff who work closely with faculty researchers and others with Ph.D.s. “We’ve assembled a team that has domain expertise in all the different areas of research at Yale,” Geballe said, “so we can deploy people from the team as needed to provide the right level of technical depth.” Like other U.S. research institutions, the office receives an equity stake when it licenses new technologies to the private sector. It also is reimbursed for patent expenses and can earn milestone payments and royalties if products reach the market. Net proceeds are reinvested in research, Geballe said. The model has been producing results. In the past year, two Yale startups were acquired in major deals. In December, pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson acquired New Haven-based cancer drug developer Halda Therapeutics for $3.05 billion. That was followed in January by Yale spinout Quantum Circuits being acquired by California-based D-Wave Quantum Inc. for $550 million. “What’s really great about both of those stories is those startups stayed in New Haven,” Geballe said during a recent interview with Hartford Business Journal. “They grew in New Haven, and even after being acquired by large public companies, they’re staying in New Haven.” Geballe recently sat down with Hartford Business Journal to discuss Yale Ventures’ growth and outlook.

‘High-utilization atmosphere’

While the organization’s office footprint is small — Biolabs, the bioscience incubator across the hall, occupies 41,000 square feet and is expanding by another 9,000 — it doesn’t feel cramped. The layout includes an open break area, a small library stocked with business and management books — many by Yale authors — and a collaboration space with couches and lounge seating. That area sits next to a conference room with a glass wall that can fully open or close as needed — a feature that earned Yale Ventures a Blue Ribbon Award in April from CREW CT, a statewide commercial real estate group that recognizes excellence in design and development. A distinctive element of the office, which Yale Ventures has occupied for about a year and a half, is its design collaboration with the Yale School of Art. Outside the entrance, a colorful installation visualizes the university’s entrepreneurial “neural network,” using metal markers to highlight key moments in its innovation history. Inside, walls feature drawings by Yale innovators, reproduced from original notes and depicting what Geballe described as their “seminal inventions.”

The space also includes glass-enclosed offices used by staff and startup entrepreneurs. “There’s no assigned offices,” Geballe said. “Everything is shared. It’s really a high-utilization atmosphere.”

Still growing

Meantime, Yale Ventures continues to expand its programming. The office, funded by the university and donations, now hosts more than 70 events annually, including the Yale Innovation Summit, Life Sciences Pitchfest and Startup Yale. The Innovation Summit, set this year for May 27-28 at the Yale School of Management, draws more than 2,400 attendees, showcases about 300 ventures and awards roughly $400,000 in startup grants. The event spans six areas: arts, biotech, civic technology and policy, climate, health and technology. Yale Ventures has also expanded its accelerator programs, which provide grant funding to startups. There are now six programs, up from one when Geballe joined. “We’ve increased the amount of funding that we give out each year from $2 million to now over $6 million per year to help support the launch of new startup companies,” he said. With that growth, Geballe said Yale Ventures has exceeded his expectations.

Elevating awareness

Asked about the organization’s biggest accomplishment, Geballe pointed to increased awareness on campus of resources available to innovators. “The awareness and the culture across campus is really evolving in a way that is very supportive of entrepreneurship and innovation,” he said. Its biggest challenge, he added, has been higher interest rates, which have slowed venture capital activity — critical to financing early-stage ventures. “A lot of really exciting innovations have struggled to get funding,” Geballe said. “A lot of them are still raising venture capital dollars and getting the funding they need, but it’s harder and we’re seeing some really promising ideas struggle to gain traction.” Looking ahead, a key focus will be growth at the Yale School of Engineering & Applied Science, where the university is investing in faculty and infrastructure, including a new physical sciences and engineering building that will house quantum research. Geballe cited work in artificial intelligence — including AI use in drug discovery and disease diagnosis — as well as advances in semiconductors and climate technology. All of those “are areas where there are significant challenges we’re wrestling with in society right now, and where we need innovation to help us get through the coming decades,” he said. He added that the pipeline of ideas remains strong. “There is a limitless supply of interesting, smart people and interesting ideas to work on,” he said.