There were 26 new Penn-based startup companies launched in fiscal year 2025, more than double the year prior.
The increase marked a rebound in startup formation at the University after three consecutive years of decline. Penn established 29 startups in 2021 — the highest total in the past six fiscal years — before numbers dropped to 24, 17, and 12 over the subsequent three years.
The Penn Center for Innovation is the University’s hub for translating academic research into commercial products and businesses. It works with Penn students, faculty, and staff to form startups, patent and license inventions, develop commercialization strategies, and connect companies with investors and industry partners.
A request for comment was left with a PCI spokesperson.
PCI Ventures helps determine whether discoveries can become commercially viable businesses, guiding projects from early ideas to venture formation.
The center defines startups included in its data as companies “established by Penn or with founding technology developed at Penn.” The number of startups has fluctuated substantially over the past six fiscal years, rising from 17 companies in 2020 to 29 in 2021 before declining for three consecutive years and rebounding in 2025.
PCI Ventures assesses an idea’s potential applications and then works with researchers to identify commercial risks and set milestones. If forming a company is the appropriate next step, it then advises on leadership, equity, governance, licensing, and financing. The center also assists with other matters, such as patent protection.
Penn reported 305 patents issued in FY2025, down from 397 in 2024 and 423 in 2023. The totals include both United States and foreign Penn-based patents, and in each of those years, the number of U.S. patents issued was consistently more than double foreign patents issued.
The revenue generated by these startups has continued to fluctuate since 2020. The revenue raised by Penn startups was $590.9 million in 2020, and then surged to $1.2404 billion in 2023 before declining to $633.1 million and $591.1 million in the following two years.
Penn’s commercialization activity operates within a substantially larger research enterprise.
At the start of this year, Penn launched the StartUP Fund, a $10 million initiative managed by the Office of the Chief Innovation Officer that makes early-stage investments in companies built around Penn technology and founded by Penn faculty and researchers. The fund will invest up to $250,000 in eligible companies.
The fund announced its first investments to three faculty-founded companies earlier this month: Vasowatch, which is developing technology to predict the risk of postpartum hemorrhage; OneFiltr, which is developing tunable radio-frequency filtering technology; and Peptaris, which is developing an artificial intelligence-powered platform for designing peptide therapeutics.
“The fund is intended to be the earliest stage capital for ideas that are coming out of the entire University,” Chief Innovation Officer John Swartley said in a January interview. “We want this to be a resource that is useful not just to biotechnology and pharmaceutical start-up ideas, but also AI, energy, and FinTech.”
Senior reporter Rachel Kang contributes to data reporting and can be reached at kang@thedp.com. At Penn, she studies neuroscience. Follow her on X @rchllkng.
