UNC KickStart Venture Services celebrates awards to university startups

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s KickStart Commercialization Grant program hosted a luncheon last month to celebrate seven innovative startups awarded a combined $326,000 from the program in 2024.

The Innovate Carolina KickStart Grant Awards Program provides up to $50,000 per company to help early-stage companies based on UNC intellectual property meet commercial milestones. Grantees also receive access to internal and external business experts to assist with commercial translation.

Small grants create big impact

“The KickStart Grant Awards help de-risk these technologies by establishing a collaboration agreement between the startup company and UNC, enabling the work to progress to a stage where it can secure further funding, whether dilutive or non-dilutive,” said Mireya McKee, director of KickStart Venture Services.

The luncheon was held in the Innovate Carolina Junction, a hub for innovation in downtown Chapel Hill with coworking areas, private offices and meeting rooms to foster collaboration among entrepreneurs, startups and businesses. At the event, each grantee received their award, gave a brief presentation, and had the opportunity to network with UNC faculty and Innovate Carolina administrators.

“Over the past 15 years, $3.14 million in KickStart grants — on average just $37,000 each — has helped generate over a billion dollars in follow-on funding,” said Dedric A. Carter, vice chancellor for innovation, entrepreneurship and economic development and chief innovation officer at UNC. “It’s a powerful reminder that relatively small amounts of early support can make a tremendous, lasting impact on the success of these companies.”

Innovators shaping the future

The event showcased the creativity and drive of the latest round of KickStart grantees, who are turning groundbreaking research into promising new ventures. "It’s exciting to see fundamental research from the university translated into real-world solutions — and even more inspiring when that work is driven forward by researchers stepping into entrepreneurship,” Balaji Vasudevan, operations and program manager for KickStart Venture Services.

The companies that received the 2024 awards work across diverse cutting-edge technologies, including RNA genomics, gene therapy, advanced materials and artificial intelligence.

AmarnaBio uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to identify targets that can predict patient outcomes and serve as potential therapeutic candidates, especially for neurological and rare diseases. These high-need areas are currently hindered by high development costs, extended timelines and reduced success rates. The company is leveraging underutilized DNA products known as genomic dark matter to find specific targets that can benefit clients.

“The KickStart funding will allow us to purchase patient data, helping us optimize our capabilities and further refine our predictive tools,” said Grace Byfield, AmarnaBio co-founder.

Delgen Biosciences’ next-generation drug delivery technology is based on a novel polymer platform that can improve the delivery of protein-based drugs. The company’s initial product is an ophthalmic drug that could enable long-term, sustainable delivery of drugs for age-related macular degeneration patients, reducing the need for repeated injections. The company has secured over $300,000 in funding through NIH SBIR grants and KickStart and is seeking additional seed funding and talent to advance the technology and expand its potential applications.

Epigenos Biosciences Inc. has developed a gene therapy platform known as CEMTrol that leverages the body’s natural epigenetic machinery to enable controllable gene expression, which could enable personalized treatments tailored to patient needs and safety concerns. This technology addresses major limitations in current gene therapies, like the inability to adjust dosage after treatment. In addition to the KickStart grant, the company has received NIH SBIR awards and North Carolina Biotechnology Center funding, including a $250,000 small business loan in 2022 and Industrial Internship Program grants in 2021 and 2024.

“The KickStart Award allowed us to participate in the NSF Mid-Atlantic I-Corps program, where we could engage in customer discovery,” said Joe Ruiz, president of the company. “This allowed us to test our hypothesis about the shortcomings of gene therapy, ultimately confirming the end users' pain points.”

ForagR Medicines uses RNA genomics to target undruggable proteins. This innovative approach opens the door to treating challenging diseases like neurodegenerative disorders and cancer, where traditional protein-targeted therapies have fallen short. The company has developed high-throughput methods to track protein changes in living cells and now seeks investment to scale its platform and advance the discovery of transformative treatments for patients with unmet medical needs. ForagR also received a $350,000 Small Business Research Loan from NCBiotech in 2024.

LevoSens is developing a continuous monitor for levodopa, the primary treatment for Parkinson’s disease. The goal is to create a real-time monitoring device that provides both patients and clinicians with feedback for optimizing dosing and better managing the disease. The company anticipates launching the device for human use in the next two to three years and plans to use the KickStart Venture funding to support initial in vivo studies and optimization.

Persistence Therapeutics created a sponge-like implant that produces CAR T-cells inside the patient’s body, potentially reducing the cost and time of this type of cancer therapy treatment. Persistence is preparing for preclinical studies and plans to use the KickStart grant to support efforts to address manufacturing and regulatory challenges.

“We believe that technology will come with a five to tenfold reduction in the costs of CAR-T therapies for liquid and solid tumors,” said Persistence Therapeutics founder Yevgeny Brudno. “This award will help us prepare for preclinical and IND-enabling studies.”

Sorbenta Inc. is developing advanced materials to remove harmful forever chemicals, also known as PFAS, from water sources. The company’s resin technology offers flexible applications — from household filters to large-scale municipal water systems —as well as an extended lifespan and potential for reuse. Backed by over $400,000 in non-dilutive funding and active pilots at four N.C. water treatment plants, the company is seeking support to expand into industrial wastewater markets and continue delivering cost-effective, sustainable solutions for clean water.

The competitive KickStart Grant application process occurs twice a year. For more information, visit the program's website.