Have an innovation with business potential?

The Rock Chalk Ready program provides grant funding (up to $35,000) to 4-6 pre-company opportunities from KU and KUMC that can be used to “de-risk” either the technology or business opportunity. De-risking at this early stage of development means identifying and addressing critical milestones that will increase the likelihood of a sustainable new venture being formed or make an opportunity more appealing to a potential licensee.

Want to know more? Read the full overview of the program (.pdf).

These milestones are expected to be market relevant and completed within a 12-month period. Results or outcomes of the milestones should lead to a go/no-go decision regarding viability of the opportunity or otherwise increase the overall value of the business or technology. A milestones and deliverables template (.pdf) is available to help you track progress.

Examples of potential milestones are:

• Creation of prototypes
• Collection of animal data in an industry-relevant model
• Regulatory/reimbursement analyses
• Conducting customer discovery
• Other efforts demonstrating the viability of a technology or business opportunity

Awards will be funded to specific milestones with a maximum award of $35,000.

The following criteria should be met to participate in the Rock Chalk Ready program: 

• Lead applicant must be an employee of KU or KUMC.
• Proposal must seek to advance a technology/innovation/discovery arising from research activities at KU or KUMC.
• Technology/innovation/discovery must already have been disclosed and reviewed by the KU Center for Technology Commercialization (KUCTC).
• Rights in the technology/innovation/discovery and associated intellectual property must not yet have been licensed from KU. 

Each applicant will be required to submit a short, written proposal that will be subject to confidential review by a committee comprised of internal and external advisors. Submissions are to be made using KU's InfoReady internal funding and award system available to all KU & KUMC employees. 

You will be guided through the submission process and asked to provide key information regarding:

• Intellectual property
• Value proposition
• Team
• Scope of work
• Budget

*The template with examples of proposal questions (.pdf) provides guidance on the type of information to include in your application. 

Participants must agree to the following upon acceptance of Rock Chalk Ready funds:

• Upon completion of the project, each participant (or team) will be expected to provide a final project report on progress toward the proposed milestones (format to be provided).
• Upon completion of the project, each participant (or team) will be expected to give a pitch-style presentation to a panel of potential advisors/investors made up of Jayhawk alumni.
• Participating teams will be highly encouraged to leverage the results of their Rock Chalk Ready funding into a subsequent KS POC fund application, SBIR/STTR application, NSF I-Corp participation, StartupCentral, or other follow-on funding program.
• Upon completion, wrap-around services (market research, business plan development, etc.) and additional educational opportunities will be available to participants from our friends at KU Innovation Park.
• Participants will also be required to complete an exit survey and respond to annual surveys from KUCTC so that further development of the opportunity and its success may be tracked.

*A full list of terms and conditions will be provided to all awardees.

Submissions are made using KU’s InfoReady internal funding and award system available to all KU and KUMC employees. If you are new to the InfoReady system and unfamiliar with the platform, a user guide (.pdf) is available to guide you through the process. Applications for the 2025 cohort are due by May 9, 2025.