Austin Technology Incubator (ATI)

UT Austin · Deep Tech · Discovery to Impact · Since 1989

The Austin Technology Incubator, founded at UT Austin in 1989 by George Kozmetsky, is one of the longest-running technology incubators in the United States. It commercializes deep-tech ventures in circular economy, energy, food and agtech, mobility and water, and graduated humanoid robotics maker Apptronik in 2019.

FOUNDED 1989 GRADUATES 300+ companies ECONOMIC IMPACT $3B+ in Central Texas IPOS ANCHORED 10 MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS 50+ CAPITAL RAISED, LAST 12 YEARS $1.7B+
Founder
George Kozmetsky
Parent unit
Discovery to Impact
Verticals
Five
Address
2815 San Gabriel St

Overview

Founded to Revive Austin in 1989

By the late 1980s the Savings and Loan crisis had left Austin with one of the country's highest commercial vacancy rates and a skyline of unfinished "see-through buildings." George Kozmetsky, then dean of UT's College of Business Administration and founder of the IC2 Institute, launched ATI in 1989 with funding from the City of Austin, the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce, Travis County and an anonymous donor widely understood to be Kozmetsky himself. Laura Kilcrease was founding executive director, at first as an unpaid volunteer.

The goals were 200 jobs in three years and one million square feet of vacant office space filled within 10. ATI created 350 jobs in three years and filled more than one million square feet within seven, and it was Austin's only established technology incubator until 2006.

Structure

Mission and Place in Discovery to Impact

ATI serves UT as a teaching and research lab for entrepreneurship and serves the region as an economic development catalyst, connecting university and community founders with capital, mentors and corporate partners. It is the only major Austin incubator mandated to commercialize UT intellectual property, faculty research and student ventures.

ATI is now a unit of Discovery to Impact, UT Austin's research commercialization arm, which also runs Intellectual Property Development, Life Science Technology Development, industry Business Development, Licensing and Collaborative Research, and the UT Seed Fund for startups built on UT intellectual property. Mark Arnold is Associate Vice President for Discovery to Impact and Andrew Maas is Assistant Vice President for Technology Transfer.

Focus

Five Deep-Tech Verticals

Capital Factory invests across AI, SaaS, defense, health, fintech and consumer technology; ATI takes ventures that depend on scientific or engineering breakthroughs rather than software or business-model innovation.

ATI focus areas
VerticalScope and Examples
Circular EconomyMaterials reuse, waste-stream recovery and industrial process efficiency from UT engineering and materials research
EnergyGeneration, storage, grid integration and efficiency; the ATI Clean Energy Incubator has run since the early 2000s, led from 2009 by Mitch Jacobson, who later became ATI director
Food and AgtechAlternative proteins, precision agriculture and food systems; Induction Food Systems (industrial heating for food processing)
MobilityAutonomous vehicles, electrification and robotics; Apptronik (2019) is the best-known recent graduate
WaterTreatment, reuse and leak detection, including city utility leak detection and water reuse in oil and gas

Results

Track Record and Affiliated Programs

Through 2024 ATI had graduated more than 300 companies, added over $3 billion in Central Texas economic impact, anchored 10 IPOs, supported more than 50 mergers and acquisitions, and helped members raise more than $1.7 billion over its most recent 12 years. Through about 2006, members had raised more than $720 million, generated more than $1.5 billion in revenue and created more than 10,000 jobs. The first cohort in 1989 drew 170 applications, about 20% from out of state, and more than 1,000 companies applied from 2005 to 2017.

ATI runs the NSF Southwest I-Corps Node, which trains researchers in customer discovery for the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps program. It is affiliated with the Blackstone LaunchPad at UT Austin, funded by the Blackstone Charitable Foundation, and organized the Texas Global Health Security Innovation Consortium (TEXGHS) for pandemic preparedness.

Case Study

Apptronik: From UT Lab to Humanoid Robots

Apptronik spun out of UT Austin's Human Centered Robotics Lab, graduated from ATI in 2019 and builds the Apollo humanoid robot, with pilots at Mercedes-Benz, GXO Logistics and Jabil and a partnership with Google DeepMind. Co-founder and CEO Jeff Cardenas holds a McCombs BBA ('08) and an MSTC ('13), and Bill Gates visited the company in 2024. It works alongside Tesla Optimus, developed at Giga Texas, in one of the densest humanoid robotics clusters in the country.

ATI sits between the McCombs entrepreneurship centers, which train student founders, and Capital Factory, the city's general accelerator. It operates at 2815 San Gabriel Street next to the main campus, with Discovery to Impact administration at 306 Inner Campus Drive.

Record

Dataset Record

Sources
UT Austin Discovery to Impact; Austin Technology Incubator; IC2 Institute; Apptronik
Last verified
Q4 2026