NSF I-Corps Hub Northwest

Applications for the UW hosted Fall 2025 regional I-Corps program are now closed

Applications for the UW hosted Winter 2025 regional I-Corps program will open on November 24, 2025.

Don’t want to wait until then? Apply to participate in any upcoming NW I-Corps Hub regional programming.

The NSF I-Corps Hub Northwest regional program offers customer discovery training that is critical to the success of any business. During this program, you will learn from proven entrepreneurs how to conduct customer discovery interviews, identify your beachhead customer segment, define your value propositions, and accelerate finding your product market fit.

CoMotion hosts quarterly regional I-Corps programs. Workshops are held virtually on Thursday mornings in January, April, July, and October. In addition to attending all workshops, participants must be ready to commit 20-25 hours per week toward conducting a minimum of 20 customer discovery interviews. There is no cost to attend.

The University of Washington is one of eight institutions that make up the NSF I-Corps Hub Northwest. UW innovators have the opportunity to participate in regional I-Corps programming at any of these institutions. Learn more about NW I-Corps Hub programs and view upcoming course offerings.

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Program description

The NSF Innovation Corps (I-CorpsTM) program aims to accelerate academic research projects that are ready to move toward commercialization. Through a 4-week workshop curriculum, program participants learn about the commercialization process and test the value of their business idea by talking to potential customers and stakeholders.

In addition to the main program that all participants can take part in, the NSF I-Corps Hub Northwest occasionally offers industry-specific tracks. Tracks include HealthTech, Blue Tech, AgTech, and CleanTech/ClimateTech tracks which allow participants with innovations in those industries to dive deeper into the specific needs of their fields. Read more about these options on the NSF I-Corps Hub Northwest website.

Details of the program

What you will learn

How to find and connect with potential customers and stakeholders
How to prototype a business idea using lean startup tools
How to tell your story to your stakeholders and your community
How to use those skills to test the value of your idea

Expectations

Connecting with and interviewing at least 5 new individuals weekly, for a total of 20 customer discovery interviews during the program
Capturing insights from those interviews to help evolve your thinking around your project
Briefly summarize and present weekly work
Practice your storytelling skills through a 5-minute presentation on your customer discovery learnings

What you will leave with

Long-lasting connections with industry resources and other innovators
Opportunities and support to apply for federal grant funding and other local and national opportunities

Who is it for?

Faculty, researchers, postdocs, students or staff members from an academic or research institution in the Northwest
Teams of 2-4 people; no technology commercialization or business experience is required of any team members

VIEW PAST PARTICIPANTS

Featured success stories

Membrion, Inc.

In October 2025, Membrion announced that it had raised $20M to continue developing industrial wastewater treatment technology. The Seattle-based company has raised $40M since spinning out of the University of Washington in 2016. Membrion participated in the I-Corps Site program at the University of Washington in 2017. Greg Newbloom, CEO of Membrion, said: “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last decade of growing Membrion it’s that nothing is more valuable than hearing directly from customers. There’s always something that will surprise you. The I-Corp program helps lay the foundation for how to have those conversations well and in a way that accelerates company growth.”

A-Alpha Bio

In May 2024, A-Alpha Bio was awarded an additional $14.5M from the Department of Defense (DOD) to enable machine learning models that rapidly predict treatments against possible biological threats. A-Alpha Bio participated in the I-Corps Site program at the University of Washington in 2016. The company is based in Seattle and was founded in 2017 at the University of Washington’s Institute for Protein Design and Center for Synthetic Biology. As of November 2025, they have raised a total of $45.5M. David Younger, CEO of A-Alpha Bio, said: “I-Corps was an immensely valuable program for A-Alpha. It got us out of the lab and talking with customers while we still had time to pivot and engrained “customer discovery” as a crucial and continual business activity.”

PvP Biologics, Inc.

PvP Biologics, a startup formed around technology developed at the University of Washington and the University of California, Davis, announced in February 2020 that it had been acquired by Takeda Pharmaceutical Company Limited. The company had landed $35 million from Takeda three years prior to complete the first phase of its clinical trial, at which point Takeda had the option to purchase the startup. Takeda acquired PvP Biologics following the conclusion of a Phase 1 proof-of-mechanism study of investigational medicine TAK-062 (Kuma062) for the treatment of uncontrolled celiac disease. PvP Biologics participated in the I-Corps Site program at the University of Washington in 2016.

Program tracks

Approximately once a year, UW CoMotion offers a discipline-specific NW I-Corps Hub program. This gives participants the opportunity to take a deeper look at their specific industry vertical. Additional discipline-specific programs are offered through the NW I-Corps Hub.