The National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2), the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) are co-hosting a VCs-Deans Summit in Washington DC on July 25, 2007. The National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) is the VC sponsor.

The purpose of the Summit is to create a discussion forum where the deans from the schools of engineering, medicine, and business (their delegates and other senior university executives, especially VPs of economic development), as well as investors from the venture capital and angel communities, discuss how to best work together in order to create sustainable university startups.

Venture-backable startups are among the leading job and wealth creators in the nation's high-growth innovation economy and are key components in maintaining American Competitiveness.

The following are a few interesting facts about university startups:

• 8 percent of all university startups go public, in comparison to a "going public rate" of only 0.07 percent for other U.S. enterprises - a 114x difference
• over 400 university startups are created nationally each year based on federally funded R&D, which included Google, Netscape, Genentech, Lycos, Sun Microsystems, Silicon Graphics, and Cisco Systems
• 68% of university startups created between 1980 to 2000 remained in business in 2001, while regular startups experienced a 90% failure rate during that same time period

The Summit is structured to maximize attendee interaction. We expect the attendees to be deans/other university officials and investors (VCs and angels) interested in helping create and fund university startups.

A key session will be dedicated to discussing how university-affiliated alumni angel groups can be formed in order to help create venture-backable startups that would, in turn, serve as a dealflow pipeline to venture capitalists for follow-on funding.

There will be an evening reception immediately following the Summit, which may include senior officials from the Bush Administration, Members and senior staff of Congress, as well as Science and Technology Officers from various Washington embassies.

The Summit is limited to 125 attendees (the reception is limited to 200).

Registration is now open. Scholarships and free registration are available for appropriate cases.