When a university researcher hits upon a discovery that might succeed in the marketplace, shouting "Eureka!" is often only the beginning, inaugurating a long and difficult course toward a new product's debut.

To make that journey easier, a new for-profit investment group has formed in southern Arizona: Desert Tech Investors LLC. Working closely with the University of Arizona's Office of Technology Transfer, the new group intends to invest $400,000 in promising projects by UA researchers.

Desert Tech was created by members of Desert Angels, a group of independent Tucson investors who concentrate on making individual angel investments—the earliest stage of venture-capital investment—to support concepts with commercial promise. Desert Tech will use $300,000 pooled from members of the Desert Angels and $100,000 from UA to help researchers at the university turn their ideas into start-up companies. Both UA and Desert Tech would stand to benefit from successes those start-ups achieve.

Desert Tech "is a rare, and very possibly unique, mechanism for a university to formally match the interests and expertise of local angel investors with those of a university and its individual researchers," said Stephen O'Neil, of UA's Office of Technology Transfer, in the Arizona Daily Star.

"When the light bulb goes off in a university professor's head, [Desert Tech] will have the first look at contributing capital, person power, and mentoring advice toward achieving proof of concept," said Barry Sonenblick, president of Desert Tech, in the Daily Star. Sonenblick, a Tucson real-estate developer, was one of the founders of Desert Angels.

On Oct. 8, Desert Tech held its first meeting, where it welcomed presentations from a trio of biotech groups seeking funding. At the fund's Nov. 28 meeting, it will determine whether to fund one of those groups, and will hear from another nascent company.

To assist UA and Desert Tech in sorting through the sometimes complex issues that must be negotiated in moving university intellectual property into the private sector, the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation is providing an additional $200,000 for education-related programming, allowing angel investors to mentor students, staff, and faculty who have interest in entrepreneurial projects.

---

For more information:

"Local investor group aims to market UA tech ideas," The Arizona Daily Star, 10/19/2007

Group Profile: Desert Angels of Tucson (Angel Capital Education Foundation)