Caltech Seed Fund

Caltech launched an internal venture fund, The Caltech Seed Fund (CSF), to support the commercialization of Caltech technologies. The Fund deploys around $1.5M per year over a 5 to 6 year period. The Seed Fund makes 4-6 investments each year, typically investing between $100K and $500K per company, using a SAFE investment vehicle. There will be no follow-on investing from the CSF beyond the initial investment. The Caltech Seed Fund's purpose is to supply pre-seed and seed capital to help promising new Caltech companies achieve milestones that will allow them to secure a priced round within 12-18 months. The mission of Caltech is to expand human knowledge and benefit society through research integrated with education. The CSF will further enable society to benefit from the technological innovations developed at Caltech/JPL by increasing the number and success rate of companies bringing products and services to market that are based on Caltech technology. Commercialization is an important component of Caltech's desire to share its innovation with the world, and the university is rapidly moving in that direction with new centers that are translational in nature. The CSF complements these existing efforts.