New SLC incubator, venture fund targets promising science-based startups
An artist rendering depicts a 30,000-square-foot incubator planned by Portal Innovation at Woodbine Labs in Salt Lake City. Science-based startups will be the focus of the facility. (Image by ESG, courtesy Portal Innovation)
An artist rendering shows the interior of an incubator planned by Portal Innovation at Woodbine Labs in Salt Lake City. It is expected to be operational by the second quarter of 2027. (Image by ESG, courtesy Portal Innovation)
Brice Wallace
Salt Lake Business Journal
A Chicago-based venture development company will launch an incubator and a venture fund in Utah to help science startups.
Portal Innovation says the 30,000-square-foot science incubator will open in the second quarter of 2027 at Woodbine Labs, 555 W. 700 S., Salt Lake City. It will provide scientific infrastructure, venture support resources, potential seed investment and access to Portal’s connected innovation community. The venture fund for Woodbine Labs, Powered by Portal will invest in promising high-potential, science-driven, local startup companies.
“This project reflects exactly why we launched the Powered by Portal platform,” said John Flavin, founder and CEO of Portal Innovations. “By combining thoughtful lab design and management with hands-on strategic founder support, we help our partners and the startups in these spaces focus on what matters most: commercializing great science. Utah has all the ingredients for continued life sciences and techbio growth, especially at the interface between AI and biology, and we’re excited to be part of that momentum in Salt Lake City.”
The incubator will be the fourth site developed for the managed services platform Powered by Portal in the past two years. Other locations are the UChicago Science Incubator, New Jersey Innovation Hub, and Ocean State Labs in Rhode Island.
Through the platform, Portal partners with regional stakeholders to help emerging innovation markets translate academic research into venture-backed companies by combining turn-key specialized wet and dry lab operations, founder support and early-stage investment. Portal says its Crafted Capital approach deploys human, physical and financial capital in a coordinated way to support startups within each ecosystem and bridges the gap between scientific discovery and commercialization for entrepreneurs transforming cutting-edge research into successful
businesses.
“This incubator is precisely the type of investment my administration’s Tech Lake City initiative seeks to attract, and it is a perfect fit for the Granary District,” said Salt Lake City Mayor Erin Mendenhall. “It’s a mutually beneficial relationship, especially with so many universities that call our city and region home. We are happy to welcome Portal Innovations to our city’s flourishing life sciences industry.”
The incubator is being developed in partnership with Convexity Properties, a DRW Investments company, and High Boy Ventures.
“This partnership with Portal Innovations is about building durable innovation infrastructure,” said Jeremy Kerman, managing director at Convexity. “We’re helping create a hub that connects local scientific talent with national capital and industry relationships, ensuring startups in Utah are embedded in a broader network that supports growth at every stage.”
The incubator will receive ecosystem support from BioUtah and is expected to serve as a commercialization pathway for startups spinning out of research institutions, including the University of Utah and Brigham Young University.
“For founders, access to the right lab space, capital and experienced operators at the earliest stage can determine whether a breakthrough idea becomes a real company,” said Jared Bauer, CEO of Seek Labs and board chair at BioHive. “Woodbine Labs, Powered by Portal will create an environment where scientific entrepreneurs can focus on building transformative science while tapping into a broader network of expertise and investment. That kind of support is essential to scaling innovation in Utah.”
In addition to scientific infrastructure, venture support resources and potential seed investment, the incubator will provide access to Portal’s connected innovation community. Member companies also will gain access to the Stargaze Network Terminal, which is Portal’s proprietary private-network platform designed to accelerate the growth of science-driven companies.
Developed in-house, the Terminal connects entrepreneurs, operators, investors and strategic partners through a curated secure environment that allows faster access to expertise, capital pathways and commercial partnerships. By linking companies across Portal’s national footprint, the platform helps early-stage teams overcome common barriers to scaling beyond their local markets. To date, the network has supported more than 150 companies and over 500 members.
“By securing Portal Innovations as our anchor partner at Woodbine, we believe this is the first step in making Woodbine the life science innovation hub that we always envisioned,” said Maximilian Coreth, managing partner of High Boy Ventures, an Alta-based real estate development company. “We’re excited to take the first step in making the Granary District in Salt Lake City a locus for life science advancement in Utah.”