Universities leaders being involved with start-ups and venture capital funds is less rare than it once was, but there are few that combine both jobs.
One who does successfully is Michael Crow, president of Arizona State University (ASU) and non-executive chairman of In-Q-Tel (IQT), a venture capital firm set up to find and source the technologies developed by entrepreneurs that might be relevant to its paymaster, the US government’s intelligence community.
And many of these technologies have come from companies founded with support from universities and grants from other government agencies.
In its annual tax filings, IQT said it was founded in 1999 as a “private, not-for-profit company to help the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] and broader US intelligence community identify, adapt and deliver cutting-edge technologies that address national security needs. IQT’s strategic investment model … [means,] on average, for every dollar that IQT invests in a company the venture…
