Arts Venture Fund

This initiative is a first-of-its-kind, philanthropic, return-based fund that invests in promising arts ventures and creative projects with commercial potential.

The University of Michigan Arts Venture Fund is a first-of-its-kind, philanthropic, return-based fund that invests in promising arts ventures and creative projects with commercial potential emerging from the U-M community. Led by the U-M Arts Initiative, in collaboration with Innovation Partnerships, the Department of Entrepreneurship & Leadership at the School of Music, Theatre & Dance, and the Zell Lurie Institute for Entrepreneurship at the Ross School of Business, the Fund adapts the university's technology-transfer model to the arts, providing early-stage, risk-tolerant capital and strategic support while pursuing a triple bottom line of cultural impact, social impact, and potential financial sustainability.

The Fund will leverage commercial development channels to take ideas with the potential for positive social impact to scale, bringing U-M arts innovation to a broad public. It aims to support sustainable artist career outcomes while preserving artist creative ownership and control, and to bridge the transition from academic development to professional commercialization, increasing the scope and impact of arts-based projects and ventures.

Building on U-M's successful Accelerate Blue investment fund model, the Arts Venture Fund brings a tech-transfer mindset and set of techniques to the arts. It aims to propel arts ideas to greater success while placing U-M at the forefront of arts entrepreneurship, attracting bold and creative faculty and students who want to take their ideas to scale and maximize social benefit.