Guidelines & Application

The HIT Fund awards are for Stanford University innovators whose work has progressed towards developing solutions for specific commercial applications. The awards are intended to provide the seed funding for de-risking critical activities that enable technology transfer or securing additional funding from industry or venture capital.

Funding must be for projects undertaken at Stanford University. The project must have a clearly identifiable innovation component. Proposals must include a Stanford faculty PI or sponsor. This is a competitive selection process and only the top-ranked proposals will be awarded.

Eligibility

Current Stanford students, postdoc, faculty or staff members
Open to any Stanford school or institute
Each proposal must have at least one faculty member as a principal investigator
The project must have a clearly identifiable innovation component that has been previously disclosed to Stanford’s Office of Technology Licensing (OTL) (See: Submit an Invention)

Examples of activities eligible for funding include, but are not limited to:

Building customer prototypes
Conducting pilot studies
Market development activities and consultants
Materials purchases and contract manufacturing for customer samples
3rd party reliability and performance validation
Regulatory & reimbursement consultants
Techno-economic analysis
Stipends and salaries for students and postdocs
Other pre-approved activities

Award Components

Advisory Support

Awardees receive resources and hands-on support in navigating the opportunities and challenges that arise in preparing for commercialization, which may include the following:

Industry-specific executives and domain experts as Advisor(s) through the award term.
Connections to industry experts who can share actionable insights on key requirements, prototype building, industry standards, and manufacturing at scale.
Introductions to potential partners, customers, suppliers, collaborators, investors, and advisory board members.
MBA Interns to help with customer discovery , identifying go-to-market approaches, and analyzing the market opportunity and competitive landscape.
Patent attorneys and technology licensing experts to help with patent strategy and white space mapping.
Friendly VCs to offer feedback on go-to-market strategy and investment pitches.
Business ideation sessions with Industry and domain experts to help identify promising market opportunities and go-to-market approaches.

Tips for applying: Indicate in your application which advisory resources you are requesting and if you'd like to be considered for advisory support if your monetary request is not granted.

Funding — Milestone-based, up to $250,000

Funding is intended to address only the key technical or market risks as necessary to attract collaborators and investors by the end of the HIT Fund project. Funding can be used for activities including:

Building customer prototypes
Conducting pilot studies
Materials purchases and contract manufacturing for customer samples
3rd party reliability and performance validation
Regulatory and reimbursement consultants
Techno-economic analysis
Market development activities and consultants
Stipends and salaries for students and postdocs
Other pre-approved activities.

Tip for applying: We expect to fund only one project at the $250,000 level each year, so the competition will likely be significant. The large majority of funded projects will be between $50,000 to $150,000.

Evaluation Criteria for HIT Fund Awards

A committee selected from the HIT Fund staff, external advisors, and affiliates provides input in the evaluation of all applications.

The objective of the HIT Fund is to advance technologies to the point where additional external funding and/or technology transfer is achieved. The following evaluation criteria will be considered during the review process:

Clearly identified market need, as evidenced by demonstrated interest from potential industry partners or customers. If interest has not been established, the proposed Statement of Work includes a needs-discovery or product-market fit activity as an early milestone.
Technology/solution has the potential to scale to be able to have a meaningful societal or economic impact. If unknown, the proposed Statement of Work includes validation as an early milestone..
Competitive advantage over solutions that are currently available or in development. If unknown, the proposed Statement of Work includes a competitive analysis activity as an early milestone.
A demo, prototype, and/or pilot program exists or development is included in the proposed Statement of Work, without which the technology/solution is unlikely to garner interest for technology transfer.
Likelihood of success of the proposed technical innovation and project milestones within the budget and award timeframe.
HIT Fund expertise and resources are appropriate in addressing the current challenges to commercialization and will meaningfully advance the technology/solution along the commercialization path.