Summer Entrepreneurial Fellowship

Determine a go-to-market strategy for a real innovation

This fellowship will bring together 1 MBA and 1 PhD or PostDoc to determine a go-to-market strategy for a real innovation that will be commercialized. You will be engaging with for The Innovation Institute for Health (IIFH) at UC Davis, as well as with Cornucopian Capital and their venture creation studio, Barnstorm Foundry. Your team will determine an initial market, and go-to-market strategy, for a real product, developed in the labs at UC Davis, and funded by Barnstorm Foundry.

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About the start-up you will be working to launch:

Your work will help determine the strategy of the venture backed start-up company, AmnioSense.

AminoSense is a novel sensor technology that helps optimize muscle growth and degradation by taking real-time amino acid measurements in blood. Your task will be to conduct early-stage exploration of relevant markets, validate an initial target based on AminoSense’s unique value proposition, and design an actionable commercial strategy. You will create a plan for your work, gather market research, examine the landscape of potential customers and partners, conduct research, think critically about execution strategy, and evolve your work plan with input from the broader AminoSense, Barnstorm, Cornucopian, and IIFH teams over the summer.

Who your advisor will be:

You will meet weekly with your advisor, Kim Fisher, who will help guide the team as well introduce you to other relevant professionals.

Kim is the director of programs at IIFH, where she collaborates with scientific experts to address pressing global health challenges. She has held leadership roles including Chair of Research for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation and has created executive education programs at UC Berkeley. With a BS from Wharton and an MBA from UC Berkeley, Kim is also a former CEO featured in five books and on the cover of U.S. News & World Report.

IIFH Fellow Amber Flores at Better Ventures VC

Who you’ll be engaging with:

The Innovation Institute for Food and Health (IIFH) at UC Davis works with strategic industry-academic partners to drive interdisciplinary research and accelerate the commercialization of innovative technologies, addressing global challenges in food and health.
Barnstorm Foundry is a venture incubator working closely with entrepreneurs and leading scientific experts in the UC Davis ecosystem and beyond. Barnstorm is powered by Cornucopian Capital, a unique private investment firm supporting high-integrity, early-stage technology companies in Medicine 3.0—an emerging data-driven predictive and preventative model of medicine.

As a Fellow, you will have the opportunity to work alongside leading academics, experienced operators, investment professionals, and domain experts across a range of disciplines at the cutting edge of Medicine 3.0.

3-Month Program

Timeline: mid- June through September 2025

3-month immersion with team in Davis, CA
- Fellows will be required to be in-person full-time for the duration of the fellowship.
Selected Fellows will be expected to meet with their advisor for a pre-kick off meeting in the Spring where they will receive information and materials needed to prepare for their full-time engagement. Selected Fellows are expected to bring themselves up-to-speed with these resources prior to beginning their fellowship.

Application Deadline: February 28

Support:

PhD/Postdoc: coverage of current salary and benefits (postdoc) or funding for existing 100% GSR appointment (PhD) for three months
MBA: compensation dependent upon experience and qualifications.

Details

Expectations & Deliverables

Expectations:
- Enthusiastic engagement and collaborative teamwork
- Participate in all meetings with program hosts
- Meet milestone deadlines
The key deliverables will be a comprehensive paper detailing your findings and recommendations, and a presentation with key highlights and recommendations (to include but not be limited to):
- Target markets assessed
- Deep dive information about selected target market
- Overview of existing solutions in the market
- Assessment of customer preferences based on interviews, research, focus groups, etc.
- Technology evaluation
- Summary and conclusions from customer and expert interviews

Other deliverables may include market sizing, business model, opportunity assessment of the market and commercial potential for the explored technology/research

This work will be to determine an initial target market for this technology and a go-to-market strategy.

Eligibility

Applicants from UC Davis only:

PhD students who have passed Qualifying Exam
- Must have support from PI approving the applicant’s engagement.
Post doctoral scholars
- Must have support from PI approving the applicant’s engagement.
MBA students in good academic standing

Selection Criteria

Looking for candidates with:

Interest in using innovation to solve food and/or health challenges
Interest in entrepreneurship and advancing innovative research or business concepts
Professional drive to apply their academic expertise to the business sector and help shape the future of the food and health industry
Skill sets and knowledge of relevance to project description above

Application Requirements

Please apply by providing the following documentation:

Resume or CV (PDF)
Letter of interest detailing why the program is of interest to you, and how your career goals align, and relevant experience. PhD/Postdoc candidates: Include in your letter of interest details about your current PhD research. (max. 2 pages, PDF)
Optional: Letter of recommendation speaking to complementary strengths. PhD/Postdoc candidates: This letter of recommendation must be from someone other than your PI.
(PhD/Postdoc candidates ONLY) Letter of support from PI approving the applicant’s graduation. (max. 1 page each, PDF)

Please combine items 1-4 above (in the order they are listed) into one single PDF for submission. Further information can be found on the submission form.

Please note you must be signed into your UC Davis or Google account to apply. Problems? Contact [email protected].

Apply Now

Make sure you are signed into your ucdavis.edu email address; Google account must be signed in for link to work.

Fellowship Questions

Our team is here to help! Feel free to send any questions regarding the Innovator Fellowship to [email protected].

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