Businesses to be launched through CWRU's new Science Entrepreneurship Programs (SEP) just got a boost. The State of Ohio's Technology Action Board recommended that CWRU's FastStart, LLC, a professionally managed pre-seed venture fund, receive $100,000 from the board's fund.

The money will help CWRU students implement businesses they develop during the two-year master's degree in entrepreneurship programs.

CWRU's project was one of three among eight proposals accepted by the board. The other two are the NovaMedics Technology Validation Fund of the Cleveland Clinic and In4 Early Stage Investment Capital Fund of the Regional Technology Alliance of Northwest Ohio. The programs need the State Controlling Board's approval before they can receive the grant.

"These projects make it possible to accelerate new and innovative technologies, which will lead to more high-tech, high-paying jobs for Ohioans," said Gov. Bob Taft.

Cyrus Taylor-president of FastStart, director of CWRU's SEP and professor of physics-says the newly formed venture company eventually will be able to distribute about $70,000 to each new company at its launching.

The estimated pre-seed money was based on what NeoMed Technologies, the Physics Entrepreneurship Program's first success story, needed to start and keep the company in Ohio.

"The challenge is that the sources we used for NeoMed's pre-seed funding are not easily scalable as the Science Entrepreneurship Programs rapidly grow in size," Taylor said.

Over the next three years, the biology, chemistry, mathematics and statistics departments will design new entrepreneurship programs for graduate students in their departments. Within five years, CWRU will graduate some 85 new entrepreneurs annually.