Lehigh Venture Studio provides a structured environment to translate Lehigh’s world class intellectual property into scalable new startup companies without the need for faculty inventors to leave their academic roles to operate a new venture.
The Process
Discover: We partner with faculty and campus researchers to identify university owned intellectual property with real commercial potential, especially when launching a new startup is the best path to market.
Develop: Our Lehigh Venture Studio team, made up of experienced startup builders, industry experts, and students from undergraduate through PhD programs, does the hands on work of a founding team. Together they test the business opportunity, validating it or ruling it out.
Deploy: We package startups so they're ready to spin out, then recruit and support founders to launch the company and license the technology. Faculty inventors who want a larger role can also join the founding team as a technical co-founder.
Ways to Get Involved
Faculty
If you've made a breakthrough in research but don't want to leave academia to run a company, we can help. Lehigh Venture Studio provides the venture-building expertise, infrastructure, and hands-on support needed to turn your work into a startup, so you can stay focused on research and teaching. If you'd like a hand in the venture, you can also choose to join the founding team.
Students
Are you a startup-minded undergrad, masters or doctoral student? Join a dedicated venture team for hands-on, work-to-learn experience in startup building. You'll work alongside experienced founders and industry experts on real ventures, testing ideas and building skills. Both credit-bearing and paid opportunities are available for qualified students who want real-world entrepreneurial experience.
Alumni & Friends
We're building a pipeline of Lehigh University startups and invite alumni and community members to get involved. Founders can license our startup packages. Investors get an early look at spinouts needing capital. Venture Architects help build ventures internally and can go on to lead one if they choose. Startup Experts lend legal, financial, mentoring, or other professional support.
How is the Venture Studio different?
Lehigh Venture Studio is a joint initiative of the Office of Entrepreneurship and the Office of Research. It's built directly into Lehigh's entrepreneurship ecosystem, filling strategic gaps rather than duplicating what other programs already do.
Here's how the Ventures studio fits in with, and differs from, some of Lehigh's other entrepreneurship programs:
- Office of Technology Transfer (OTT): The Venture Studio sources intellectual property from OTT once they've assessed the technology and recommended a startup path. We also direct undisclosed faculty inventions to OTT first, so the technology is properly protected before moving forward.
- Research Translation AcceLUrator (RTA): The Venture Studio is one component of RTA's Venture Creation Pathway. We support the translation of research into a startup company when the faculty inventor doesn't plan to leave their academic post to run it.
- Lehigh Ventures Lab (LVL): The Venture Studio translates ideas into companies, while Lehigh Ventures Lab supports those companies once they exist. A successful outcome for the Venture Studio is a new company that applies to, and is accepted into, Lehigh Ventures Lab for continued growth.
Want to be involved?
Whether you're a faculty researcher with an idea worth commercializing or a student ready to learn by doing, the Venture Studio has a pathway for you.
Made Possible By
The Entrepreneurship "Kitchen Cabinet," a group of highly successful entrepreneurs who generously volunteer their time, has supported Lehigh Venture Studio from its inception, focusing first on helping the Studio get off the ground.
Building on that foundation, the McLeod family's generous lead gift will help students and faculty move promising ideas beyond the lab and into the real world, while gaining the confidence that comes from learning through experience.
Congratulations Class of 2026!
Every May, we get to do one of our favorite things: celebrate the seniors who made our programs richer, our community stronger, and our work more meaningful. This year's graduating class brought curiosity, grit, and more than a few ideas worth watching. We couldn't be prouder to have been part of your Lehigh journey.
Innovate! Celebrate! 2026: From 'What If?' to What's Real
The annual Innovate! Celebrate! event was less a ceremony than a demonstration. On the evening of April 28, Lehigh University's Office of Entrepreneurship filled the room with confetti, applause, and something harder to manufacture: proof. Proof that curiosity, when given the right ecosystem, becomes something real.
The Farrington Award for Outstanding Commitment to Entrepreneurship
The Farrington Award for Outstanding Commitment to Entrepreneurship, named for Lehigh's 12th president and given annually to recognize sustained, all-in dedication to the university's entrepreneurship community, has a short but distinguished list of past recipients, including Dexter Baker, John Thalheimer, Joan Thalheimer, Jamie Flinchbaugh, Joshua Cohen, and Pat Costa. This year, Frank Balcavage, class of 2001, joined them.