TLA Partners With Global Startup Incubator TechCode

The University of Arizona, through its invention commercialization arm Tech Launch Arizona, has partnered with TechCode, a global network of startup incubators and entrepreneurial ecosystems. TechCode will provide networking resources to increase the reach and effectiveness of TLA's technology innovations and startups.

With an extensive global network of incubators across locations such as Silicon Valley, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Seoul, Berlin and Tel Aviv, TechCode is capable of helping startups scale globally.To help startups enter the China market, TechCode has a strategic partnership with China Fortune Land Development Co., or CFLD, a leader in investment and operation of new industrial cities. CFLD integrates industry, university, research, government and finance resources in more than 40 such cities across the world. TLA startups will gain supply-chain support and access to all of these resources. This will help speed up commercialization and test global market entry for TLA companies.

Ted Kraus, investment director at TechCode and a UA alumnus, helped create the partnership after serving as one of TLA's commercialization partners, a unit comprised of volunteer executives who provide market insight and product perspectives on technologies in development at the UA.

"Formalizing this partnership highlights another step toward the TechCode goal of cultivating a strong global entrepreneurial ecosystem," Kraus says. "The collaboration with the UA will provide TechCode with many things, including access to strong talent and deal flow for our accelerator and funds. The partnership also provides UA-affiliated technologists and startup founders with additional access to human, intellectual and financial capital from Silicon Valley and beyond."

"This agreement is advantageous for the University and UA inventors in any number of ways," says David Allen, UA vice president. "It enables TLA to become part of an established, effective commercialization ecosystem that will provide the services and connections essential to moving nascent technology into the marketplace with speed and at a global scale."

Since TLA began in 2012, the University has created 42 startups, and patented and licensed hundreds of inventions. As the UA culture shifts, researchers are increasingly engaging with TLA to commercialize the results of their research.

Currently, TLA has 20 commercialization partners who volunteer time and expertise to the University. These partners are augmented by TLA's 1,300-member network of domain experts.