Osage University Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in university startups. Over the past 9 years they have spoken with about 5000 teams attempting to start a business based on research. In this talk, David will use some of their own data to discuss the different roles that the scientific founder play in the commercialization effort. He will also talk about what they, as investors, look for in a CEO when they are deciding to fund a university startup, using a fictional example for discussion.

1. CONFIDENTIAL & PROPRIETARY UNIVERSITY INNOVATION, REALIZED.
Who are the Founders of University
Startups?
DAVID DORSEY
OSAGE UNIVERSITY PARTNERS
SciFest Montreal
July 11, 2018

2. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 2
OSAGE UNIVERSITY PARTNERS OVERVIEW
Unique venture capital firm that partners with research institutions to invest in university spin-outs on their
behalf. OUP has over 95 partner institutions
Partner institutions share in OUP’s profit and benefit from significant support in launching and promoting
start-ups
OUP has over $300M under management, has invested in 85 university spinouts, with 10 IPOs and
multiple acquisitions to date
OUP invests in early, middle, and late stage university spinouts in all sectors -- therapeutics, medical
devices, diagnostics, software, advanced materials, hardware, and more

3. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 3
Alumni Founder
• Usually a grad student or post-doc who is committed to seeing their
research become commercialized
• Their role in the startup may be CEO, CSO, or CTO
CEO Professor
• The startup is founded by the professor, and she assumes the role of CEO
at the time of founding
Professor Founder
• The professor is an active member of the founding team (CTO, CSO), but
not the CEO
External Licensee
• Founders did not come from the lab where the technology was developed, and are not
professors
• Experienced entrepreneurs who track promising research, develop product and
market strategy for the technology, and license IP from the university (and/or
professor)
FOUR TYPES OF UNIV STARTUP FOUNDERS

4. • Data is taken from a subset (263)
startups from our 5000+ database
of university startups
• Tech startups only
• Already raised venture capital
• Considered high-quality/ investible
SOME DATA ON THE FOUR TYPES
Key Takeaways
1. Entrepreneurial experience is a plus
2. Many successful startups benefit
from an active founding professor
3. Fewest startups where prof is the
CEO

5. • Over 40% of tech startups in the
dataset have CEOs with a PhD
– Compared to data on overall
Internet startups, where there
are more college drop-outs than
PhDs
• MBAs made up less than 20% of the
CEOs, and they raised
proportionate amounts of capital
• Successful CEOs in deep science
startups are usually technically
strong
UNIVERSITY TECH CEO EDUCATION

6. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 6
FINDING THE RIGHT FIT: IMPORTANT ENTREPRENEUR
CHARACTERISTICS
• Track record of success, including learning through failure
• Thoughtful with strong judgment, both tactical and strategic
• Continuous learner: curious, accepts input from others, learns from mistakes
• Domain expertise, either directly or indirectly
• Great leader
• Ability to attract and retain talent
• Intensely entrepreneurial and passionate
• Hands on driver and manager of team
• Clear examples of strong execution
• Good fundraiser and company salesman
• Scrappy: can accomplish a lot with limited capital
• High transparency / ethics
• Have they delivered on their promises?

7. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 7
A CEO SEARCH
Quantum Qubit is a new photonic quantum computing hardware company
building a quantum machine with computing power orders of magnitude higher
than existing computers. Key facts:
• Expects to have a commercial product available in two years.
• Will develop both hardware and application software
• During the next two years, will establish close collaborations with corporate
partners to define quantum computing use cases
• Will need to raise a $3mm seed round now, $20mm Series A in two years
• 3 person engineering team in place today

8. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 8
CANDIDATE PROFILES: WHICH WOULD YOU PICK?
Candidate A: 10 years experience, first as an engineer at Broadcom, left to
become VP Product Development at a networking startup that Cisco
acquired for $200mm
Candidate B: 3-time successful entrepreneur in software, hardware, and
medical devices. 1 company went public, 1 acquired by Medtronic, 1 still
private
Candidate C: former General Manager at IBM’s Quantum Computing
group, prior to that CTO of server business unit at IBM
Candidate D: Founding PI of company. Served as CTO of previous
university spinout for 2 years in the resistive RAM memory space

9. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 9
NO CEO AVAILABLE, WHAT TO DO?
• Hire less than perfect CEO?
• Hire interim outside CEO?
• Have the academic / founder serve as interim CEO?
• Have no CEO?

10. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 10
CEO REQUIREMENTS CHANGE OVER TIME
• Initial Spinout
– Ability to collaborate with inventors
– Technically strong
– Hands on
– Strong recruiter
– Strong fundraiser
• Product Development
– Good at finding product-market fit
– Strong sales talent (i.e. for partnerships)
– Strong recruiter
– Strong fundraiser
• Commercialization
– Great at sales & marketing
– Strong manager
– Strong recruiter
– Strong fundraiser

11. Osage University Partners Proprietary Information 11
PERSONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF A GREAT CEO
Vision
• Drive to be the leader in the space (2nd place isn’t acceptable)
• Thinking high level, but taking care of the details
Communication
• Build and drive an internal team
• Sell the vision externally – communicate succinctly and be able to sell
Adaptability
• See what’s coming before everyone else and positions to take advantage of it
• The quicker CEOs admit they were wrong, the faster they can pivot
Realistic/Modest
• CEOs aren’t expected to have every skill necessary to build out a company
• The best CEOs identify what they lack and will hire better people around them to make
the company succeed
Low and high ego
• The best CEOs have a high ego to be irreverent about the industry they’re disrupting,
firm in their beliefs, and have significant grit when faced with problems
• They also have low enough ego to know that when they’re not the right person to run a
company or solve a problem, they step aside

12. Thank You!
Contact
ddorsey@osagepartners.com
davidjdorsey
@OUP_VC