CoMotion, the innovation arm of the University of Washington, is gearing up to move just down the street from its current location to a new space located inside the UW’s Startup Hall.
Later this year CoMtion will relocate from the Blume building at 4545 Roosevelt Way to Condon Hall, which houses Startup Hall, an entrepreneurial hub that opened in 2014 and is home to Techstars Seattle and Seattle venture capital firm Founders’ Co-op.
A CoMotion Labs incubator is already located at Startup Hall, but now CoMotion’s other operations will be housed there as well.
The square-footage in the new space will be about the same as the current location but is spread over two floors rather than one, said Donna O’Neil, marketing lead for CoMotion.
“In addition, we will have a sizeable event space which will allow us to host more events focused on local and regional innovation and innovators,” O’Neil said.
Startup Hall is part of a growing neighborhood in the university’s west campus called Portage Bay Crossing that aims to be a center for research, education, and entrepreneurship.
“As it attracts more innovation partners and diverse talent, Portage Bay Crossing will grow into a gestalt where people discover, learn, live, and play, and into a tissue connecting the main Seattle campus to the growing city around it,” François Baneyx, UW vice provost for innovation and director of CoMotion, wrote in a recent blog post.
CoMotion handles the university’s technology transfer process, helping UW researchers launch startups and secure patents for their discoveries. It originally started in 2009 as the Center for Commercialization (C4C).
There are currently 110 active UW spinouts that employ more than 1,000 people collectively. Those companies have raised more than $4.1 billion over the past five years.
Recent UW spinouts include Zap Energy, Propio, A-Alpha Bio, AltPep, Membrion, Aquagga, and All Patients Safe, among others.
