Now in its 20th year, Lassonde Institute touts its gaudy statistics

Marking its 20th year, the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute at the University of Utah is showcasing its success.

The institute’s fiscal year 2021 annual report indicates that since 2001, the institute has worked with more than 97,000 students, awarded 1,500 scholarships, and helped students launch 2,719 startup teams that have raised more than $704 million in funding.

The number of startup teams has jumped from one in fiscal 2002 to a high of 521 in fiscal 2019. The institute helped students launch 405 startup teams in fiscal 2021.

The institute is an interdisciplinary division of the Eccles School of Business. Among its activities, it offers extracurricular programs for students across campus and beyond; grants for startups; thousands of dollars in scholarships to student leaders each year; and manages Lassonde Studios, a facility for student entrepreneurship and innovation.

The Lassonde program began as the Pierre and Claudette MacKay Lassonde New Venture Development Center, which still exists today and pairs graduate students with scientists and entrepreneurs needing help developing a business strategy.

The Pierre Lassonde Entrepreneur Center was created in 2006. Its formation marked the first major expansion of what is now the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. The center provided business plan competitions on top of the graduate program it was already offering. In 2008, renovations were completed on the “Lassonde House,” a historic home in the Fort Douglas neighborhood of the University of Utah campus that would become the first home of the Lassonde Center. The center continued to add more programs and reach more students, and in 2013 it became the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.

Pierre Lassonde and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute broke ground on Lassonde Studios in 2014. The 160,000-square-foot building includes 20,000 square feet of innovation space
on the first floor and four levels of residential space. During 2020-21, the studios welcomed its fifth group of 400 residents since the building opened in 2016.

A total of 2,254 residents have lived in the Lassonde Studios since fiscal 2017, with students coming from 39 countries.