High Impact Technology (HIT) Fund — 2024 Call for Applications
The HIT Fund awards are for Stanford University innovators whose work has progressed towards developing solutions for specific commercial applications. The awards are intended to provide the seed funding for de-risking critical activities that enable technology transfer or securing additional funding from industry or venture capital.
The objective of the HIT Fund is to advance technologies to the point where additional external funding and/or technology transfer is achieved.
Milestone-based funding up to $250,000 will be awarded, for up to 12 months. Funding is intended to address only the key technical or market risks that are a barrier to attracting collaborators and investors by the end of the HIT Fund project.
Awardees receive resources and hands-on support in navigating the opportunities and challenges that arise in preparing for commercialization, which may include:
- Industry-specific executives and domain experts as Advisor(s) through the award term
- Connections to industry experts who can share actionable insights on key requirements,
prototype building, industry standards, and manufacturing at scale - Introductions to potential partners, customers, suppliers, collaborators, investors, and advisory
board members - MBA Interns to help with customer discovery , identifying go-to-market approaches, and
analyzing the market opportunity and competitive landscape - Patent attorneys and technology licensing experts to help with patent strategy and white space mapping
- Friendly VCs to offer feedback on go-to-market strategy and investment pitches
- Business ideation sessions with industry and domain experts to help identify promising market opportunities and go-to-market approaches
Applications that are solely for advisory support for customer and market research activities (i.e. do not include a financial request) are also encouraged.
Additional information and full application can be downloaded at goto.stanford.edu/HITfund
For questions associated with the HIT Fund or the application process please contact:
The HIT Fund team at TheHITfund@stanford.edu
- Clearly identified market need, as evidenced by demonstrated interest from potential industry partners or customers.
- Technology/solution has the potential to scale and have a societal or economic impact
- Competitive advantage over solutions that are currently available or in development
- A demo, prototype, and/or pilot program exists, or is proposed, sufficient to garner interest for technology transfer
- Current Stanford faculty, students, postdocs, or staff members
- Open to any Stanford school or institute
- Each proposal must have at least one faculty member as a principal investigator (PI)
- The project must have a clearly identifiable innovation component and the intellectual property must have been disclosed to Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing (OTL)
Funding must be for projects undertaken at Stanford University. The project must have a clearly identifiable innovation component. Proposals must include an active principal investigator (PI) at Stanford. This is a competitive selection process and only the top-ranked proposals will be awarded.
Examples of activities eligible for funding include, but are not limited to:
- Building customer prototypes
- Conducting pilot studies
- Market development activities and consultants
- Materials purchases and contract manufacturing for customer samples
- 3rd party reliability and performance validation
- Regulatory & reimbursement consultants
- Techno-economic analysis
- Stipends and salaries for students and postdocs
- Other pre-approved activities
