$2.5 Million for Inland Empire Entrepreneurial Life Sciences Incubator
Riverside, CA – A $2.5 million grant from the Economic Development Administration was awarded to the University of California, Riverside, to acquire equipment for use in the first wet lab incubator in the Inland Empire. An additional $2.5 million in matching grants will be added by the State of California and internal UC Riverside funds.
The incubator will provide Inland Empire entrepreneurs, laboratories services and resources to advance their life sciences discoveries, with local wet lab space and commercialization guidance from experts in business startups.
“With the wet lab incubator, we support our entrepreneurs with local laboratory facilities and expert mentoring to grow their companies,” said Chancellor Kim A. Wilcox. “The research coming out of UC Riverside and the Inland Empire region is top notch,”
The grant was a collaborative effort between the County of Riverside, the UC Riverside Office of Technology Partnerships, the city of Riverside, and the University of California, Riverside Center for Economic Development and Innovation.
“We are delighted to see the wet lab incubator support our county’s startups to help us build a resilient and knowledge-based economy in our region,” said Rob Field, assistant county executive officer/economic and community development.
Approximately 15 job-creating startup companies will be accommodated from UC Riverside and throughout the Inland Empire.Support, mentoring, and access to capital for incubator residents will be provided by EPIC SBDC (UC Riverside Entrepreneurial Proof of Concept and Innovation Center Small Business Development Center).
EPIC’s entrepreneurs-in-residence with expertise in agriculture, life sciences, and business, will offer specialized commercialization assistance to entrepreneurs. Incubator residents will also have access to help from UC Riverside’s SBIR/STTR support center to obtain federal Small Business Innovation Research and Small Business Technology Transfer grants.
“A wet lab incubator in our region will be an important catalyst in the growth of local life science and agriculture biotech firms that will generate long-term multiplier jobs in our community,” said Riverside Mayor Rusty Bailey.
The University of California, Riverside is a doctoral research university, a living laboratory for groundbreaking exploration of issues critical to Inland Southern California, the state and communities around the world.
