My 5 biggest learnings from commercialising university innovations

As an entrepreneur I really like nerdy technology that can give a competitive edge. What better place to start looking for such innovations than at universities?

I honestly think our universities are full of great innovations and I am on regular basis evaluating new opportunities coming from there. Below are some of my experiences from dealing with universities, their researchers and their technology transfer offices:

1. Most researchers are not entrepreneurs. And many should not be – there is a good reason why they have dedicated decades of their life to doing research and not started companies in the past.  
2. You will need to find a new CTO. The above means that in many cases the inventor will not become your technical co-founder (CTO), since the researcher in many cases don’t have the skills or the desire to go full-time into a startup. It’s always hard to find the right technical-co-founder, but this issue is in my mind enlarged when dealing with university innovations. The more nerdy and specialized the innovation is, the harder it is to find one person that both have the technical skills AND the skills to get a disruptive startup of the ground (and not the least – the DESIRE to do it)
3. Technical innovation vs. market need. What I like about university innovations is that, from a technical point of view, they are well-researched. If the university has decided to put money into patenting the innovation, you can be sure that it from a technical point of view is differentiated from existing knowledge/products. Not only from a local perspective but globally. Of course universities’ technology transfer offices also take the market potential of the innovation into consideration before patenting, but at many universities this analysis is far more superficial than the technical analysis. You will need to do that almost from scratch!
4. Research vs. products. This might be obvious, but many university funded projects are at a very early development. Often the researchers would think otherwise and claim they just need a little bit before it’s ready for the market. In my experience this “just” is a very long time before the new innovation is implemented into a real commercial product. This goes for both software and hardware projects. Yes, the researchers might have demonstrated that “it works” in a lab experiment or a software prototype, but how much is needed before you have a real commercial product.
5. Getting to Plan B – and the patents. Like literally every other startup, your initial Plan A will not hold. This goes for both the commercial assumptions (business model) and the technical (IP, product etc.). Where this creates problems are often in relation to the universities who in many countries own the IP. Since you will know that the initial IP/patent often will have to be abandoned along the way, you would put relatively little value at it. Where the university in many cases are of the opposite opinion.

Sepior:

Right now I am co-founder of a company that started as university research. This startup is Sepior, which originates from research done by Ivan B Damgaard and his team at Aarhus University. Ivan is one of the most respected researchers within encryption of data.

At Sepior we use Ivan’s encryption know-how (within the sub-field of Multi Party Computation) to secure data in the cloud from data breaches (hacking etc.). Our first product is called Sepior Storage, and currently encrypts data going into Dropbox. Sepior is in closed beta with a number of pilot customers.

Sepior will be in San Francisco and the Bay Area the first week of June, to meet investors and partners. Send me an e-mail  ([email protected]) if you want to meet us there.