Third Coast Foundry, a new initiative designed to strengthen the combined presence of Midwestern universities in the San Francisco Bay Area, launched March 10 with WashU as an inaugural member.
The two-year pilot program brings together eight partner universities to support connection with venture capital (VC) investors and collaboration for university startups, researchers and more.
Located at 625 Second St. in San Francisco’s South Park neighborhood — a hotbed of venture capital activity and emerging artificial intelligence technology — the 3,500-square-foot workspace will serve as a short-term base for university-founded startups and teams traveling to the Bay Area, creating opportunities for investors, alumni and other partners to connect through networking and programming.
“St. Louis and WashU innovate like crazy,” said Doug Frantz, vice chancellor for innovation and commercialization at Washington University in St. Louis. “We just don’t have that capital to follow up on. To play offense, we needed to have some additional collisions out in the Bay Area. In conversation with our colleagues, we realized it makes a lot of sense for us to do this as a team. Now we have this central point for all these Midwestern universities to come out there and offer technologies to venture capitalists and firms.”
Third Coast Foundry represents one of the first multi-university Midwest bases in the Bay Area focused on venture engagement and innovation support. Other hub members include Carnegie Mellon University, Northwestern University, Purdue University, The Ohio State University, University of Chicago, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The physical space at Third Coast Foundry also will support demo days, receptions, seminars and workshops, expanding visibility for university startups and offering new ways for Bay Area investors and alumni to engage. Managed and operated by the Polsky Center at the University of Chicago, it will be a shared resource for participating institutions, with each university contributing to programming and community-building efforts that elevate the collective Midwest innovation presence in San Francisco.
“Getting our principal investigators — our faculty, who are the best in the world — in front of these VCs is the best-case scenario,” Frantz said. “Our PIs are so good at what they do, they’re so passionate about the impact they’re making. That one-on-one, face-to-face interaction is still so important. Having that physical space out there means the world to us.”
Collectively, the partner universities account for more than $10 billion in annual research investment and educate nearly 300,000 students, producing one of the nation’s largest talent pipelines. Grand opening details are forthcoming; learn more about the space on the Foundry’s website.
