•Despite a substantial body of literature examining university technology transfer, the entrepreneur’s perspective has received little consideration.•We introduce an opportunity evaluation framework to consider how technology attributes influence entrepreneurs' decisions to license the technology.•The technology’s prototype maturity, segment clarity, and regulatory hurdles are all significant predictors of entrepreneur’s decision to license.•Active search for a technology license opportunity moderates the relationship between prototype maturity and the decision to license.•Both specific knowledge of the technology and active search moderate the relationship between regulatory hurdles and the decision to license. Despite the fundamental role entrepreneurs play in the commercialization of university technology, very little research has focused on their decisions to license. In this study, we conceptualize entrepreneurs’ decisions to license a university technology as a matter of opportunity evaluation and theorize key opportunity attributes entrepreneurs evaluate in deciding whether to pursue or forgo license opportunities. We conduct a conjoint analysis experiment to test our model. Data from 784 decisions made by 98 entrepreneurs revealed that their considerations of prototype maturity, market segment clarity, and regulatory hurdles significantly influence the likelihood of licensing university technology. We further document that technology specific knowledge and active search for a technology license opportunity are key individual difference variables that moderate the effects of some technology attributes. A key finding is that regulatory hurdles, an attribute mostly ignored in prior university technology commercialization research, are instrumental in entrepreneurs’ evaluations.