Entrepreneurship Program

Office workers in discussion at conference table
The application for the 2024 cohort is closed.

The Flinn Foundation Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program offers funding, professional support, connections, and networking opportunities to Arizona early-stage bioscience companies.

The program provides $30,000 in non-dilutive funding support for up to six startups each year, administered through a nonprofit partner, plus a professionally developed, yearlong plan specific to the needs of the individual companies that helps them advance to commercialization and become investor-ready.

Exclusive opportunities are offered to the competitively selected startups to engage with the state’s bioscience, academic, and policy leaders, including one-year memberships to Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap Steering Committee and the Arizona Bioindustry Association. Company leaders are also invited to convenings with fellow bioscience entrepreneurs.

Key Dates

December 11: Application opens
January 9: Online Information Session
January 16: Office Hours
January 23: Office Hours
January 29: Application deadline (5 p.m. MST)
March 2024: Awardees announced

Learn more:
2024 Program Flyer
Application requirements and program eligibility
Meet the program participants from 2014 to today

Information Session

2024 Information Session PowerPoint presentation

Background

In 2002, the Flinn Foundation unveiled Arizona’s Bioscience Roadmap, the long-term strategic plan to advance Arizona’s bioscience sector. One of the four strategies of the Roadmap is to create a critical mass of bioscience companies in Arizona. In 2014, the Roadmap was updated, with the first goal being to “Form a hub of bioscience entrepreneurs and new enterprises across Arizona.”

To help address this need, the Flinn Foundation launched the Bioscience Entrepreneurship Program to foster entrepreneurship and help bioscience founders develop their early-stage companies into successful and sustainable businesses in Arizona.

Since 2014, the Flinn Foundation has selected 60 Arizona bioscience companies in 10 cohorts to participate in the program through a competitive process; its nonprofit partners have provided $1.78 million in funding support.

Questions

If you have any questions about the program or application process, please contact Wiley Larsen, Flinn Foundation Program Manager, Translational Bioscience and Entrepreneurship, or Mary O’Reilly, Ph.D., Flinn Foundation Vice President, Bioscience Research Programs.