Hunter Swisher, founder and CEO of Phospholutions, won a total of $80,000 in investment prizes in spring 2018 at the Invent Penn State Venture & Intellectual Property Conference.

Hunter Swisher, founder and CEO of Phospholutions, won a total of $80,000 in investment prizes in spring 2018 at the Invent Penn State Venture & Intellectual Property Conference.

Pitch your solution.

Ag Sciences students and faculty have numerous opportunities to gain funding for their innovations.

For students

Ag Springboard

Ag Springboard awards a $7,500 grand prize and $2,500 second prize to student teams from Ag Sciences. Ten Ag Springboard student teams have gone on to launch startup businesses!

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And there's much more . . .

  • Ag Springboard was among 16 pitch competitions and challenges held during Penn State Startup Week in April 2019. Read the story.
  • Penn State teams can also win $10,000 to spend the summer working on their startup idea through the Summer Founders Program.

Learn about more opportunities from Invent Penn State.

For faculty researchers

Research Applications for INnovation (RAIN) grants

Foolad tomato, field, grad, students

Researchers in the College of Ag Sciences can win $75,000 RAIN grants to help commercialize their research.  The program has awarded more than $1 million since it was launched in 2012 in support of 17 commercialization efforts yielding 5 university IP-related start-ups and 19 jobs—and counting!

Learn about all more opportunities from Invent Penn State.