Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship marks 10 years at Rice

Founded through generosity of Liu Family Foundation, LILIE invests bold ideas with entrepreneurial acumen, academic rigor, Houston-proud networking

In a city that prizes bold ideas and champions risk-taking, the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (LILIE) at Rice University has, over the past decade, become one of the country’s leading academic incubators, launching an array of inventive global ventures born in the Bayou City.

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Established in 2015 through a $16.5-million gift from the Liu Family Foundation, LILIE has thrived as a one-of-a-kind hub where ardent thinkers, rigorous academic course offerings and mentorship-minded faculty come together within a modern, collaborative workspace designed to take creative ideas from paper to real-world activation.

Since its inception, LILE has brought distinction to Rice as one of the nation’s leading entrepreneurship programs, serving more than 1,600 students each year and supporting over 100 innovative ventures annually. LILIE’s partnership with the Jones Graduate School of Business — recognized seven consecutive years by The Princeton Review as the nation’s No. 1 graduate entrepreneurship program — makes Rice an enviable academic ecosystem where students are poised to succeed within the fast-changing business landscape

The milestone anniversary celebrates the vision behind its founding: to make Rice a fully integrated hotbed for entrepreneurship where visionary ideas find life beyond the campus walls. Offering dedicated courses, mentorship, business-savvy faculty and significant financial resources, LILIE is uniquely equipped to prepare innovators with skills to thrive in careers from nonprofit and small businesses to high-tech and Fortune 500 companies

The Liu Family Foundation’s investment helped position Rice and Houston as leaders in grooming young innovators with the ability to take ideas from the lab into the marketplace, enhancing and diversifying the global standing of both the city and its premier research university.
 

“By building this transformative platform for innovation and entrepreneurship, Rice has strengthened its standing as a launchpad of possibilities and ideas that place Houston at the forefront not just of energy, aerospace and medicine but as a global leader in digital technology, advanced manufacturing, renewable energy and biotechnology,” said Yael Hochberg, who heads LILIE.

In its first decade, more than 300 companies have been set into motion by LILIE-supported Rice graduates. These startups are as varied as they are inventive and include ventures focused on water purification, energy storage, laser-based medical devices, clean climate technologies, humanitarian aid data systems, air conditioning advancements, AI-powered data security and even running shoe technology to reduce leg and foot strain.

These student-led ventures were shaped, refined and supported through the LILIE network. Additionally, they have raised over $25 million in both dilutive and nondilutive funding to continue powering their world-changing ideas after graduation.

As LILIE looks ahead to its future, it will continue to evolve alongside rapid advances in AI and global innovation. As an accelerator for creative problem-solving, it will adapt to remain a leader in preparing students to help change the world.

At its core, LILIE believes in a future built by those bold enough to chase it. That was true at its start, remains so today and will continue for decades to come.