UVA Innovates
Be a founder.Save the world.
The Founders’ University.We are the nation’s university — built by founders, for founders. Students and faculty, staff and alumni, parents and friends: an academical village of people who begin things, and who build the companies, institutions and movements that change the world.
Our ambition
America’s leading founder university
Where ideas become enduring ventures, innovations and institutions that change the world.
Founded by UVA alumni
, founded by Alexis Ohanian & Steve Huffman ’05
, founded by Paul Merolla ’00
, founded by Arsalan Tavakoli-Shiraji
, founded by Mendel Rosenblum ’84
, founded by Reggie Aggarwal ’91
, founded by Halsey Minor & Shelby Bonnie
, founded by Bill Crutchfield ’65- QIM, founded by Jaffray Woodriff ’91
Top stories
View allThe CEO and co-founder of Due Flow is a member of the College’s Class of 2027.
The Professor of Biomedical Engineering is CSO and co-founder of Springbok Analytics.
The Paul & Diane Manning Institute of Biotechnology is already operating — a year before its doors open.
The four engines
About UVA Innovates9 Elliewood Ave · since 2024
722 Preston Ave · since 2025
North Fork · since 2025
In development
Founders from UVA
The whole historyUVA was itself a founding. Almost nothing below was founded on Grounds — these are the people who studied and taught here, then carried what they learned out and built something with it. The point of UVA Innovates is that the next one starts here.
Planned by William Barton Rogers on the model he had spent eighteen years teaching here. He became its first president.
Edgar Odell Lovett, a UVA Ph.D. and instructor, designed its academic plan and became its founding president.
Edward Stettinius Jr., who attended UVA, chaired the U.S. delegation at the conference that wrote it.
Founded here, on a resolution by a professor, and run by students ever since — one of the few on this list that began on Grounds.
Two undergraduates from the same dorm launched it the summer after graduation.
The Foundry, Enterprise Studio and UVA LVG exist so the next founding starts on Grounds.
Milestones
“UVA is full of people who refuse to accept the world as it is. Students restless with possibility. Faculty who see discovery as the first step on the path to wisdom. Alumni who carry Jefferson’s unfolding vision into the world.”
— Paul CherukuriChief Innovation Officer, University of VirginiaThe UVA Entrepreneurship Council
Convened under UVA Innovates, the Council brings together the people who lead entrepreneurship centers across the University. It meets monthly to coordinate what each of them is doing — and any one of them can route a founder to the right door.
Brian Breslin
Director, The Foundry · Director, Student Entrepreneurship
The Foundry
David Chen
Managing Director, Coulter Center for Translational Research · Assistant Dean for Entrepreneurship & Innovation Partnerships, UVA Engineering
Engineering
Omar Garriott
Executive Director, Batten Institute · UVA Darden
Darden
Christine Mahoney
Director of Social Entrepreneurship, UVA · Chief Innovation Officer, Batten School · Professor of Public Policy and Politics
Batten Leadership
Abby Fifer Mandell
Director, Galant Center for Innovation & Entrepreneurship · Senior Lecturer of Commerce
Galant Center
Jim Zuffoletti
Managing Director, Enterprise Studio
Enterprise Studio