From Lab to Market: UniversityTech.io’s Global Mission

Discover how UniversityTech.io, supported by WeWork Labs, is bridging academia and industry to speed up commercialization of university research globally.

For Parag Agarwal, co-founder and CEO of UniversityTech.io, building his latest venture feels like coming “full circle.”

“I actually started my career in this space 20 years ago in Scotland,” he recalls. “To come back to the world of universities, tech transfer and research commercialization now, it feels like things have aligned.”

Launched in 2024, UniversityTech.io is on a mission to accelerate the commercialization of university research worldwide. The platform focuses on bridging the gap between academia and industry—helping companies discover and adopt innovations that would otherwise remain stuck in labs and publications.

“In many cases, research just sits on a shelf,” Parag explains. “Our goal is to make it translational. It should impact society, be converted into goods and services—otherwise it’s only theoretical.”

Starting Lean, Thinking Global

Unlike his earlier ventures, Parag decided to keep things lean at the start. “This is my third time as an entrepreneur. The difference this time is I just wanted to get started instead of raising money and waiting for a team. With today’s AI tools, you can do a lot on your own,” he says. Day zero for UniversityTech.io was simply a blog on Substack, where he began organizing information and experimenting with how research could be marketed.

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Within a year, Parag partnered with Makarand Kaprekar, a medtech industry veteran, who joined as a co-founder to lead commercial opportunities, formed an all star global advisory board, and signed promising go to market partnerships in Europe with leading tech transfer players. The platform has already facilitated promising matches: connecting a multi-billion-dollar Indian engineering firm with research in wastewater treatment and compressed biogas, and linking a Malaysian university with a nutraceutical company. “These stories have given us the confidence that if we scale this up, we’ll unlock many more such connections,” says Parag.

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Navigating Complexity

But working with universities is no easy feat. “Every university—even within the same country—has its own policies and tech transfer processes. That makes the industry experience very inconsistent,” Parag notes. “We can’t solve all of it on day one, but what we can do is structure the information, make it discoverable, and get the conversations started.”

In the long run, he hopes UniversityTech.io can play a role in standardizing technology transfer practices globally. “Not trying to replace the tech transfer office,” he clarifies, “but bringing best practices to every part of the world, not just Western markets.”

Building with WeWork Labs

When it came time to find a base, Parag turned to WeWork. Living in Mumbai, he was already surrounded by WeWork buildings. “I initially took a day pass for important work,” he says. “But once we were closer to a product launch, I knew it was time for a dedicated space.”

He discovered the Growth Campus program through an event where he interacted with the WeWork Labs team. “Two things stood out—first, the quality and availability of the space, and second, the community. Mohini from WeWork Labs has been very proactive in making solid connections. ”

Parag even sees potential for WeWork Labs to expand further: “You could almost do what Antler’s residency does—bring solo founders together, match them, and help them build. A founder board saying ‘looking for a co-founder’ could go a long way.”

The Road Ahead

Looking forward, Parag is focused on partnership-driven growth across the US, UK, Germany, India, and Malaysia. “Having built global healthcare communities before, I know niche ecosystems don’t grow through virality or marketing alone. It has to be driven by partnerships and trust,” he says.

In India, he believes University Tech can play a critical role in the government’s new R&D push under the ANRF. “The government is focusing on ease of doing research and ease of doing science. The third pillar we are working on is ease of doing licensing. Commercialization has to happen alongside research, not years later.”

His advice for anyone entering the university–industry space? Patience. “You have B2C, B2B, and then B2U—business to universities,” he laughs. “Universities have legacies and bureaucracies. Change doesn’t happen overnight. If you want to build here, you have to be in it for the long haul.”