Temple leans into the startup game with new innovation center in North Philly

Today marks the grand opening of Temple University’s Innovation Nest. Known as iNest — in homage to the school’s owl mascot, which is represented on a lenticular wall at the entrance — the facility will support innovators in the Temple community, serving as an event and meeting space and incubating startups The idea is that when Temple researchers are ready to spin out their own company, all the resources they need will be accessible within iNest, said Stephen Nappi, the university’s associate VP for technology commercialization and business development. The space is also a home for student innovations under the Blackstone LaunchPad. Consolidating office and lab space for research and development in one location not only “makes it easier for researchers to engage, but also easier for our partners to to engage,” Nappi told Technical.ly. Injection molding company Muse Engine was the first company to secure space at iNest, and has been operating an R&D lab there since last November. The 8,000-square-foot facility, which takes up the fourth floor of 3223 N. Broad St. on Temple’s Health Sciences Campus, is also looking to build partnerships with outside companies, investors and resource organizations, such as global tech transfer consortium Bio Strategy Partners. “When it comes to innovation commercialization, we need partners.” Nappi said. “We need to partner with entrepreneurs, investors, existing companies, and so on.” The university is trying to create more opportunities to turn research into real businesses, said Josh Gladden, Temple’s VP for research, and iNest is just one of the initiatives to make that happen. Temple’s Small Business Development Center and Innovation Entrepreneurship Institute also offer resources for startups, and iNest hopes to collaborate with these other centers to consolidate resources, Nappi said. Gladden acknowledged other universities have similar centers, such as the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Center for Innovation (PCI), which has been around since 2014. Over the past five years, PCI has spun out more than 100 startups. Last year alone, Penn-affiliated startups raised over $1.2 billion. Meanwhile, Temple spinout companies raised roughly $180 million in funding over the last three years, according to Nappi. The nonprofit Sbarro Health Research Organization, one of Temple’s longstanding research partners, was one of the first to contribute funding to iNest. The state’s PA CURE program and Redevelopment Assistance Capital Program also contributed funding. iNest facilites, according to the center’s website, include: Wet labs Cell culture rooms Clean room Gene sequencing facility High thoroughput computing space Coworking space Equipped meeting rooms Pitch presentation zone Flex space Large event space for 100+ attendees Cafe Parking In terms of programming, the plan is to host showcases for emerging technologies and existing startups, as well as training and education programs for entrepreneurs. “What we want to see is certainly how we can accelerate and build efficiency into the process for how we spin out companies,” Nappi said. “But we also want to make sure the pipeline of new opportunities has a platform that will enable us to spin up the next generation of companies.” Scroll down for more pics of the new space. Sarah Huffman is a 2022-2024 corps member for Report for America, an initiative of The Groundtruth Project that pairs young journalists with local newsrooms. This position is supported by the Lenfest Institute for Journalism. Join the conversation! Find news, events, jobs and people who share your interests on Technical.ly’s open community Slack