Become a partner
CoMotion partners with university departments, companies, nonprofits, investment groups and individuals who support our mission of guiding UW innovations from idea to impact. Contact us to learn how to become a UW CoMotion partner, or learn more about building your brand’s visibility with our startup community by partnering with CoMotion Labs.
Current partners
Challenge Seattle
The University of Washington and Challenge Seattle — a private sector initiative of 17 of the Seattle region’s CEOs — are committed to advancing our region’s economy and our quality of life by helping to build the transportation system of the future. They have partnered to create the Mobility Innovation Center, a multi-disciplinary Center that will bring together the region’s leading expertise from the business, government, and academic sectors to use technology and innovation to find transportation solutions.
CSC Leasing Company
CSC Leasing company offers flexible equipment financing solutions. Their foremost goal is to help companies obtain the assets they need to achieve their goals, at the lowest possible cost. They do this by providing innovative and competitive leasing programs, tailored to meet the unique needs of their clients and always focusing on the long-term relationship. Learn more about the solutions they offer. They supported the CoMotion Labs July 2024 Mix & Mingle and will be supporting the March 2025 Start Something event.
Excedr
Excedr offers lab equipment leases for life sciences. The company saves labs time and money by providing flexible leasing solutions, comprehensive service coverage, and quick turnaround. Learn more about their leasing solutions. They have supported the CoMotion Labs‘ “START SOMETHING” series.
Perkins Coie
Perkins Coie is a leading international law firm that is known for providing high-value, strategic solutions and extraordinary client service on matters vital to our clients’ success. With more than 1,200 lawyers in offices across the United States and Asia, they provide a full array of corporate, commercial litigation, intellectual property, and regulatory legal advice to a broad range of clients, including many of the world’s most innovative companies and industry leaders as well as public and not-for-profit organizations. The firm supports UW’s CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund celebrations at the end of each cycle. The Fund targets research and technologies with strong commercial potential and has contributed more than 500 individual grants to the University of Washington.
Washington Research Foundation
Washington Research Foundation supports innovation at any stage, operating at the intersection of academic research, technology development, public and private investment, philanthropy and industry. They are a major contributor to UW’s CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund program that targets research and technologies with strong commercial potential and have contributed more than 500 individual grants to the University of Washington.
Key UW programmatic partners
CoMotion also works with a number of University of Washington partners across campus including the Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship, Population Health and the Undergraduate Research Program. Learn more about these partnerships below, and please contact us to learn how you can partner with CoMotion.
Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship
The Arthur W. Buerk Center for Entrepreneurship through the Foster School of Business partners with CoMotion in many ways. CoMotion-supported startups are encouraged to participate in their competitions which include the Dempsey Startup Competition, the Alaska Airlines Environmental Innovation Challenge (EIC), and the Hollomon Health Innovation Challenge (HIC). Other collaborative efforts include programs such as I-Corps, and there are numerous startup resources, entrepreneurship event,s and career support such as the UW Startup Job Fair.
Population Health Initiative
The Population Health Initiative and CoMotion jointly fund, at $25,000 each, a winning project from the applicants of the CoMotion Innovation Gap Fund and that supports the vision of both units. The applicants for this funding go through CoMotion’s Innovation Gap Fund process, and funding decisions are jointly made by the Population Health Initiative and CoMotion. This funding track began in May 2018 and is offered each spring. The first two recipients include last year’s NatureCollections, led by Katie Davis, with support from mentor Patrick Gray and Innovation Manager Laura Dorsey, and this year’s “Non-invasive ultrasonic clearing of implanted catheters” ledby UW assistant professor of Neurological Surgery, Jason Hauptman and UW professor of Neurological Surgery and UW Bothell professor of Engineering and Mathematics, Pierre Mourad.
Undergraduate Research Program
The University of Washington Undergraduate Research Program partners with CoMotion to offer opportunities to undergrad students such as the CoMotion Mary Gates Innovation Scholar program. This program provides opportunities for a select number of students to gain full-time experience learning about the innovation process by spending the summer as an intern with faculty-led initiatives to transfer university research to real-world impact. Learn more about how to apply and past recipients.
School of Law
The University of Washington School of Law partners with CoMotion through the Entrepreneurial Law Clinic (ELC), with whom we have compiled a list of resources that help UW researchers comply with all the legal obligations of creating a startup. These include federal resources and information on planning, launching, managing, and growing your small business; information about forming and licensing your business; as well as advice, workshops and free resources for entrepreneurs.