Our Mission and Updated Model
PCI Ventures is a dedicated team within PCI that helps Penn faculty and other researchers grow venture-backable startups. We engage early, bring the right expertise, and create commercialization plans with concrete steps. Working with our team is free and optional.
We’re interested in hearing from you if you have discoveries or ideas that have the potential to become new products or services, even if you’re uncertain if they could be the basis for a new company. We work with Penn innovators at every stage, from early ideas to venture formation, and we’ll help determine the optimal commercialization path together.
→ Schedule a conversation with PCI Ventures by contacting us at pciventures@lists.upenn.edu.
A note from PCIV’s Executive Director
I am absolutely thrilled to join Penn and PCI after leading successful commercialization programs across the federal government in domains such as health, AI, advanced manufacturing, imaging, and logistics. That work reinforced a simple conviction: great science can change the world but only when it charts a clear path to real-world impact and attracts a strong team to execute. Penn is particularly well-positioned to lead in this effort given its world-renowned reputation for generating great science with practical applications. As we begin this new chapter at PCIV, my team and I are highly energized to be participants in Penn’s amazing story of innovation and impact. We look forward to working with you!
— Craig Gravitz, JD
Executive Director, PCI Ventures
Build with Us
Commercial readiness framework
The framework above provides a roadmap for “what commercial maturity looks like.” We work with you to develop milestones (tasks to be completed) along these six dimensions, tailored to your new venture.
What to expect when you work with us (the mechanics)
We will consider all Penn projects at any level of maturity, and prior involvement with PCIV is not required.
1. Assessment – a fit check
We start by understanding your idea or discovery and where it might go next . Please reach out to the team (see above) to discuss and we can walk through it together. We are committed to providing you with candid and actionable feedback, but we don’t recommend that every concept becomes a full-fledged company.
Whether you continue with our process or not, you’ll receive a valuable deliverable: a plan for outreach to a wide spectrum of stakeholders, centered around specific questions to answer to help make the right commercialization decision.
2. De-risking
If your business idea is at a stage where our resources can help to advance it further, we can bring in experienced experts to work alongside you. Together, we will sharpen the use case, identify the key risks, and define milestones to move forward with confidence.
In this commercial readiness model, PCIV does not take separate founders’ equity for the services we provide. However, companies will still need to negotiate a license with PCI to any Penn-owned asset the company wishes to use, which may include issuance of equity to Penn and other fees, such as milestone payments and royalties.
3. Formation
If there is a continued consensus that forming a company is the appropriate next step, we will work with you to shape the opportunity such that future investors, partners, and operators can understand and support the core business plan. This includes clarifying the company’s positioning, identifying leadership and team needs, and thinking proactively about how the company should be structured to be most financeable.
Company formation is more than paperwork. Early decisions about roles, equity, governance, option pools, licensing path, and operating structure can all affect whether a company is attractive to future investors and executives. We help faculty understand these issues up front and connect with the right legal, financial, and operational partners to set the company up thoughtfully from the start.
When appropriate and applicable, we can also support basic company formation steps.
Just as important, we will help you think about who needs to be involved in the company—and at what stages—for it to be optimally positioned for success. Strong science is essential, but investors also highly value other critical company creation elements, such as:
- credible operational capabilities and expert advisors;
- clear company ownership;
- a fundable business and governance structure; and
- a leadership team capable of making decisions, recruiting talent, raising capital, engaging customers, and executing beyond the lab.
Our Team + Experts
The PCIV Team
We are a dedicated team focused on venture creation, portfolio support, and company-building in support of Penn innovation.
PCIV’s Senior Commercial Advisors
Experienced founders, operators, investors, strategics, and domain experts who help faculty innovators assess opportunities and build stronger paths to market.
Shirley Bergin
Ms. Bergin has held C-level positions across multiple industries and brings an unusually diverse cross-sector lens to health innovation. She helps founders sharpen ideas, build partnerships, and navigate every stage of early company development.
Shirley brings more than 25 years of leadership experience helping innovators translate breakthrough science into real-world impact. Her work spans commercialization strategy, digital health and AI, intellectual property, market assessment, partnerships, company formation, and fundraising readiness. She has worked across startups, research institutions, government, and industry — including founding and leading the TEDMED Hive to support more than 230 early- and growth-stage health companies, commercializing a 450+ patent portfolio at Walker Digital, serving as Chief Innovation Officer at Ellipsis Health, and serving as Founding Portfolio Lead in the Office of Commercialization at ARPA-H. She holds board seats at Tiber Health and StartupHealth and prior affiliations with MIT Media Lab and New America. She brings that breadth to her work with Penn faculty and founders navigating the path from discovery to market.
Adam Glasofer, MD
Dr. Glasofer brings deep expertise in healthcare innovation, clinical informatics, and healthtech across startups, health systems, and big tech. He helps Penn faculty innovators evaluate clinical and commercial viability, navigate health-system adoption, and build scalable healthtech ventures.
Adam is Founder of Vertex Health Partners, a healthcare and technology strategic advisory firm. He previously served as Global Head of Healthcare for Venture Capital and Startups at Amazon Web Services, where he created the AWS Healthcare Accelerator and led startup adoption across global healthcare customers. Before that, he was Chief Innovation Officer/Associate CMIO at Virtua Health, founding both its telehealth program and Center for Innovation. A pediatric hospitalist for 15 years at CHOP at Virtua, Adam is board certified in Pediatrics and Clinical Informatics and holds an MS in Health Informatics.
Maren Cattonar — CEO, NERAMCO
Ms. Cattonar is a Penn master’s alumnus (Wharton and SEAS) whose career bridges deep-tech commercialization and institutional venture capital. Faculty in engineering, physical sciences, and defense-adjacent fields benefit from her ability to identify and build commercial pathways in domains where the playbook is less obvious — from dual-use technologies to advanced manufacturing and national security innovation.
Maren is a serial entrepreneur and currently CEO of NERAMCO, engaged with two dual-use venture funds, and advises US and international defense and intelligence agencies on national security innovation. Her foundational industry experience includes managing technology strategy, M&A, advanced programs, and systems engineering at Northrop Grumman, alongside serving as a senior strategic advisor at BMNT for government defense and healthcare agencies. In academia, she led market-transition efforts as Assistant Director of MIT’s Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation. She serves as a startup mentor at MIT, Harvard Business School, and previously with the US Air Force, US Navy, and Stanford.
Penn Spinouts
View the full portfolio here.