UCT TIA Seed Fund: 2015 in Hindsight

The Technology Innovation Agency (TIA)’s Seed Fund had two calls for application for seed funding in 2015: a total of 27 applications were submitted to UCT by the UCT community and 8 projects receiving funding from TIA totaling R 3,95m in investment. An important result from the Seed Funded projects was that in 6 cases follow-on applications were prepared in order to access follow-on funding from TIA’s Technology Development instrument. The year ended on a high note with news that the first full application submitted, relating to drought-resistant crop biotechnology, had been awarded ~R 9.5m subject to successful completion of due diligence. 

One of the TIA Seed Fund projects has enabled pilot-scale facilities to be established at UCT to demonstrate technologies at capacities larger than laboratory-scale for the Centre for Bioprocess Engineering Research (CeBER) and the Biopharming Research Unit (BRU).  The shared greenhouse comprises two sections: the first contains tobacco plants modified to produce a number of proteins that can be used as vaccines, enzymes and reagents; whilst the second section has raceway ponds used to grow algae such as Spirulina.  This will greatly enhance UCT’s technology transfer capabilities in these areas.

The UCT TIA Seed Fund is an instrument of the Technology Innovation Agency (TIA) which provides funds of up to R500,000 per project for the maturing of technologies and innovation and to prepare for following on funding and/or commercialisation opportunities.