The PLUS Initiative
Unlocks a wealth of technological innovations hidden in academia and solves the most challenging problems in research and development.The PLUS Initiative is an incubator investment company wholly-owned by Associated Universities, Inc. (AUI).
PLUS addresses innovators’ pain points.
Through PLUS, AUI identifies a pool of promising applied research projects throughout academia and US National Labs. PLUS focuses on under-served and under-represented institutions, and creates an investment fund to provide seed funding to develop those technologies into ventures with products and services for early market deployment. As these ventures mature enough to realize a successful financial exit, invested capital will be returned to the partners with a portion of the Carried Interest returning to PLUS to support a new pool of promising investments.
The PLUS Structure Gives Investors:
- License and equity revenue
- Options for altruistic investment
- Global problem-solving impact
- First look opportunities for new tech
- Tech streams with market pull
- Pooled resources and diverse portfolio
Through The PLUS Initiative
AUI has created an innovative and sustainable model for moving promising technologies aimed at addressing the needs for clean air, clean water, clean energy, greater connectivity, and reduced waste, out of the labs and into the market.
PLUS provides the five essential “C”s for successfully scaling science into a viable product.
Intellectual Capital
Source + Due Diligence + Selection
Human Capital
Technical Teams + System Engineers + Scale-Up Team
Relationship Capital
Access to Partners + First Capital
Structural Capital
Access to Prototyping + Testing Facilities
Financial Capital
Financing for Scaling-Up to a Field Prototype
Experienced Leadership
Dr. Sanjiv Malhotra, CEO of PLUS and AUI Ventures has raised almost $150 Million from Venture Capital, Public Equity, Pension Funds and Family Offices for his 2 ventures (Oorja Protonics and H Power Corp). He also led an IPO for H Power on NASDAQ and raised $100 million in August’ 2000. This capital has been deployed for converting science and early-stage technology into commercial products globally in various markets. Dr. Malhotra was an active angel investor between 2006 and 2015 and invested in start-ups in US and India. He was also recruited to be the First Director of the Clean Energy Investment Center at the US Department of Energy.