What kind of party involves 240 inventors, investors, entrepreneurs and patent lawyers? UNeMed’s startup wall party, of course!

I didn’t know what to expect from a startup wall party, and I left with a rare andat precious gift. It started with faces I haven’t seen in years. Mark Faulkner remembered my name. He greeted me with a firm handshake and an open grin the beamed with genuine surprise and joy. I was taken aback briefly, surprised that I, the contract lawyer who had done compliance for Vireo Systems over a decade ago, was such a welcome sight. He remarked how the startup wall had rendered the company’s most recent logo perfectly.

The new UNeMed Startup Wall features logos of 23 academic startups that have collectively raised more than $200 million. Together, 240 people celebrated the success of these startups. 

Suiter Swantz IP Patent Attorneys Scot Ringenberg, Jason Glanzer, and Benjamin Smith celebrated the unveiling of UNeMed Corporation‘s Startup Wall.

It continued with new surprises from people I see every week. Dr. Rodney Markin, my supervisor, stood happily under the logo of Lab Interlink, asking me to help him find Michael Newcomb, who was essential to have launched his laboratory automation startup. Then he posed with Taylor Korensky under the VisionSync logo – the founder he’d help recruit to launch the strategic planning company.

Standing in the throng of people, filling the Omaha Catalyst building’s public spaces, UNeMed’s Startup Wall celebration surprised me. The event evoked a sense of history and brought a life of its own. Investors perched on the monument stairway next to university faculty. Entrepreneurs shared drinks with university administrators and local patent lawyers. They swapped stories from last week, from last year and from decades past.

Then there was the big reveal.

After some brief remarks, the curtain came down and the startup wall impressed. The colorful logos affixed to it represented more than university innovation, capital raised, and milestones achieved. They were each a bespoke intersection of technology and innovation and of inventors and finance. Each was the icon of a long winding story that went beyond a mere idea, a compelling research publication, or even an innovative invention. Each was the story of an organization that meaningfully advanced an invention to touch a human life.

And does each one ever have a story. 

I had, arrogantly, internalized those stories as my job. As startups from intellectual property I had evaluated. From startups that I had witnessed launched. In the noise of the crowd, I saw how limited that view was. The colorful logos, lovingly arranged by UNeMed on the wall, were the record of a shared history that spanned our university, our city, our state, and even the whole globe.

And it sure drew a crowd.   

Hours later, the noise had faded, and the crowd dispersed. Helping to peel off the vinyl stickers and marvel at how a mountain of grilled Bratwursts can be responsibly processed, I was surprised how the event still lingered with me. For one evening, I had been able to reflect on the work of my colleagues, the work of decades, and saw its real impact in the lives of so many people. Such perspective is a rare and precious thing.

I walk by the UNeMed Startup wall on the way to my desk most days at work. While I can tell the story of most of the companies on the wall, the wall will always feel a little different. More than the structure of a deal or the conclusion of experiments, the Startup Wall will now remind me of the intersection of all the lives from the party – and so many more that couldn’t make it – and remind me of the importance of the work at the University of Nebraska Medical Center and the University of Nebraska Omaha.

And how fortunate I feel to have played a part.