The High Impact Technology (HIT) Fund

The High Impact Technology (HIT) Fund aims to accelerate the commercialization of Stanford-based innovations.

We provide seed funding along with strategic and advisory support to faculty, students, postdocs, and staff to help transform innovative, advantaged, and scalable Stanford technologies into new products, services, or companies.

Purpose

Accelerate Impact: Help accelerate the transition of technologies with the potential to have a societal or economic impact on the world’s most pressing problems, by addressing the critical technical and market risks
Advance Education: Enable access to industry-specific advisors and domain experts, friendly VCs, patent attorneys, and MBA Interns, and provide guidance helping to enhance the team's practical, entrepreneurial, and commercialization education

To have impact, great ideas need to leave the lab and enter the world. The HIT fund works with innovators to identify the best path forward, supporting them at a pivotal stage to help makes their research a reality. - Dean Arun Majumdar

Learn About the HIT Fund

How to Apply

The HIT Fund awards are for Stanford University innovators whose work has progressed towards developing solutions for scalable end use applications. The awards are intended to provide the needed funding for de-risking critical activities that enable technology transfer to industry or the formation of a start-up.

Funding must be for projects undertaken at Stanford University that have a disclosure filed with the Office of Technology Licensing. Proposals must include a Stanford faculty PI or sponsor. This is a competitive selection process and only the top-ranked proposals will be awarded.

Key Dates

Panel of Illustrations for Process: 1) Call for applications 2) Screening 3) Expert Review 4) Finalist Pitches 5) Award

The 2025-26 application submission period will open in Spring 2025.

Frequently Asked Questions

Reach out to the team: TheHITfund@stanford.edu

HIT Fund Announces Cohort 2024-25 Awardees

Stanford’s High Impact Technology (HIT) Fund has selected 14 teams to receive funding and support to accelerate their transition from the lab to the marketplace as part of its Cohort 2024-25. The HIT Fund grants awardees up to $250,000 in funds, and provides business guidance and industry connections for Stanford researchers and entrepreneurs.

This new cohort addresses market opportunities with innovations in AI-based platforms, sustainability, synthetic biology, semiconductors, medical devices and diagnostics, cell and gene therapy, and therapeutics.

Airys: AI-Powered SaaS to streamline local government access to active funding sources for climate resilience. Investigators: Khalid Osman, Charles Shi, Shayana Venukanthan, Bhu Kongtaveelert, Madison Fan.

Breath-Based Detection of Bacterial Infection in Preterm Infants. Investigators: Janene Hilary Fuerch, Juliana Perl, Christopher Lyle Strand.

Composite blood-based biomarker analysis for accessible, safe and accurate food allergy diagnostics. Investigators: Sindy Tang, Nicolas Castano, R. Sharon Chinthrajah, Stephen Galli.

Development of Selective Cannabinoid Receptor 2 Agonists for Treatment of Brain Disorders. Investigators: Mehrdad Shamloo, Jennifer Sue Lin.

Ga2O3 Vertical Transistors for Power Electronics. Investigators: Srabanti Chowdhury.

A human skin organoid model of tissue resident immunology for screening and validating tissue resident immune modulating therapeutics. Investigators: Calvin Kuo, Mark M. Davis, Hudson Horn, Ana Jimena Pavlovitch-Bedzyk.

Low-cost conversion of agricultural waste biomass into stable carbon materials for gigaton scale carbon storage and net-zero coal. Investigators: Arun Majumdar, Yi Cui, Divya Chalise.

MagStone - Translation of a magnetic system for efficient kidney stone fragment removal during ureteroscopy. Investigators: Kunj Sheth, Daniel Massana Roquero, Joseph C. Liao, T. Jessie Ge.

Metasurface Oligonucleotide Synthesizer for Engineered Biology. Investigators: Jennifer Dionne, Punnag Padhy.

NatureAssets: AI-driven platform to simplify and scale private sector investment in nature-based solutions. Investigators: Gretchen Daily, Johanna Gertrud von der Leyen, Ruth Elisabeth Appel, Zander Galli.

Preclinical Assessment of Mitochondria-Rich Extracellular Vesicles from Erythroid Progenitors. Investigators: Phillip C. Yang, Yasuhiro Shudo, Gentaro Ikeda.

Prototype Development of a Passive Closed Loop Cooling Module for a 3 kW Server for Energy Efficient Data Centers. Investigators: Kenneth E. Goodson, Mehdi Asheghi, Daeyoung Kong, Heungdong Kwon, Yujui Lin.

Recovered Potential – Electrochemical nitrogen recovery from wastewater. Investigators: William Tarpeh, Kindle Williams, Brandon Clark.

Tapping into the Immunotherapy Potential of the Thymus. Investigators: Katja G. Weinacht, Wenqing Wang.