The Maryland Innovation Initiative (MII), which accelerates commercialization and technology transfer from university labs to start-up companies, announced it has awarded $6.4 million to 67 commercialization projects and start-up companies in fiscal year 2014. Awards were given across a variety of industries, including therapeutic, software, medical devices and mobile technologies. MII is administered by the Maryland Technology Development Corporation (TEDCO).

The MII program was created as a partnership between the State of Maryland and five Maryland academic research institutions: University of Maryland, College Park; University of Maryland, Baltimore County; University of Maryland, Baltimore; Johns Hopkins University; and Morgan State University. The program is designed to increase the rate of commercializing research conducted in the partnership universities and leverage each institution’s strengths. Since it starting accepting applications in November 2012, more than 200 applications have been submitted for consideration.

“The momentum we’ve seen around the Maryland Innovation Initiative in the last fiscal year is a testament to the quality of the work done at our State’s top-notch research universities, widely considered among the best in the country,” said Governor Martin O’Malley. “The program is designed to help bring university technologies to market, and with many projects already having spawned start-up companies, we’re seeing the contributions MII is making to growing Maryland’s innovation economy.”

Since beginning to distribute funding in 2013, MII has funded 16 start-up companies and 79 university proof-of-concept projects with more than $9.3 million. The last funding cycle of the 2014 fiscal year was MII’s largest award round to date, which saw the investment of more than $1.4 million to 17 projects spanning all five partnership universities, including 2 start-up companies. The amount and number of investments in FY2014 more than doubled the awards of last year.

Click here to read the entire TEDCO release.