ANN ARBOR, Mich., September 26, 2025 — The University of Michigan’s Innovation Partnerships announced a new collaboration with WAVE Ventures through their WAVE Ventures Studio that is opening in Ann Arbor, MI. The new studio will collaborate with Innovation Partnerships to identify potential startup opportunities in the Deep Tech sector.
The new studio will pair select technologies from the university’s discovery pipeline with WAVE’s company-building playbook and hands-on operators, seasoned executives and strategic venture capital. Startups built and launched from the studio will receive venture funding, benefit from U-M startup resources and WAVE’s national network of entrepreneurial executives.
“We are pleased to provide another resource for our University of Michigan community of innovators as we support their efforts to scale the impact and reach of their innovations through commercialization,” said Kelly Sexton, associate vice president for research – innovation partnerships and economic impact at the University of Michigan. “We believe this collaboration is a powerful addition to our portfolio of commercialization support and will lead to many incredible stories of impact as we expand our ability to shepherd U-M innovations beyond campus for the betterment of society.”
New startups built in the studio will license university IP and receive funding from WAVE Ventures, adding to the growing number of startups launching each year from U-M. In fiscal year 2025, which ended on June 30, Innovation Partnerships helped launch 31 startup companies, marking the second time in the office’s history it launched 30 or more startups in a year.
“WAVE and its partners will add early capital, technical teams and dedicated operators to augment U-M’s premier company-creation engine,” said Allen Page, Managing Partner at WAVE Ventures. “By surfacing promising research that hasn’t yet found a path to market, we will launch additional startups through WAVE Ventures Studio and advance them toward commercialization and further venture investment.”
WAVE Ventures Studio, a joint-venture between WAVE and Tech Transfer Studio™, will identify high-potential IP and partner with engineers, scientists, product executives and entrepreneurs to accelerate validation and market-readiness of select U-M research and inventions. A new WAVE venture fund will back companies emerging from their studios, and will also invest in startups during their Pre-Seed, Seed and Series A stages.
WAVE will launch additional studio locations in select Texas universities and other strategic research institutions across the country following the Ann Arbor opening.