The University of Washington this week held an open house to celebrate the new headquarters of CoMotion, the UW organization supporting startups and technology commercialization.
The space spans one-and-a-half floors in Condon Hall and features south-facing views of Lake Union and downtown Seattle. The building is at the northern edge of an ambitious redevelopment called Portage Bay Crossing, a project that will cover 69 acres of the southwest portion of the UW’s main campus and aims to promote research, collaboration and community.
François Baneyx, UW vice provost for innovation and director of CoMotion, sees his organization and its new digs as an essential part of the ecosystem.
“In this building, you have innovation that is being promoted, entrepreneurship, new ways of doing things, a new way of thinking in terms of making an impact,” Baneyx said in an interview with GeekWire.
The open house was also a kickoff for the UW’s inaugural Innovation Month, which includes 65 events around the campus.
The layout of the new CoMotion offices includes 48 largely unassigned desks in an open layout to accommodate hybrid work schedules; an event room; eight rooms for online meetings; a conference room; a few private offices; and a kitchen. The renovation of the space cost $3 million.
The offices incorporate elements of the Pacific Northwest including art work from the Coast Salish people, giant photos of the outdoors, and greenery provided by live plants and preserved moss walls.
One hallway features logos from some of the 285 companies that have launched from CoMotion, while a display case highlights some of the patents secured by the program.
Recent UW spinouts include Zap Energy, Propio, A-Alpha Bio, AltPep, Membrion, Aquagga, and All Patients Safe, among others.
CoMotion’s staff were previously based several blocks north in the Blume building. The team moved in January to Condon Hall, which was already home to CoMotion Lab’s Technology Incubator and Startup Hall, an entrepreneurial hub that additionally houses the venture capital firm Founders’ Co-op. Techstars Seattle also shared the space until its suddenly announced departure from the city earlier this year.
The BECU FinTech Incubator is located in Startup Hall as well, but the five-year program is coming to an end. CoMotion leaders said they’re working on agreements with organizations to replace Techstars and BECU.
The UW’s Information School will also be moving into multiple floors in Condon Hall, Baneyx said.
CoMotion Labs runs two additional incubators in the UW’s Fluke Hall, one focused on life sciences and the other on hardware, which spans sustainability, energy, health and consumer technologies
CoMotion handles the university’s technology transfer process, helping researchers launch startups and secure patents for their discoveries. The UW’s first tech transfer office originally started in 1983 and was later known as the Center for Commercialization (C4C). The CoMotion Labs incubators are open to entrepreneurs outside of the university.
