Topspin Joins With Accelerate LI to Back Local Biotech Startups
Summary
Topspin Joins With Accelerate LI to Back Local Biotech Startups Xconomy New York — When Accelerate Long Island came together in late 2011, its plan was to start up 10 local life sciences and tech companies with the help of about $1.25 million.Accelerate LI, the broad non-profit organization looking to help commercialize the research out of Long Island, NY’s major research institutions, is announcing an alliance today with Long Island’s largest VC firm, Topspin Partners.“Topspin is the 800 pound gorilla, and the notion was why don’t we combine forces with them, and see if we could source some deals on a non-exclusive basis, and try to create companies that have a real chance for success?” Accelerate LI was formed in late 2011 by presidents of Stonybrook University, Hofstra University, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, and several others, with the idea of creating an overarching, non-profit, regionally-focused organization that could help commercialize the area’s research and spur the development of an entrepreneurial biotech ecosystem on Long Island.As such, Accelerate LI’s role is meant to be broad: it wants to seed fund startups, mentor prospective entrepreneurs and put them in contact with successful company creators, and bring the entrepreneurial community together with periodic meetings and events.After meeting with more than 150 Long Island startups over the past year, Accelerate LI found that 70 percent of the ones it views as investment candidates have been life sciences companies.