Building Investor Ecosystem for University Technology Transfer Offices

Commercialization of research is an extremely relevant subject to drive innovation and grow the economy. However, a staggering 95% of Europe's patents never find their way into companies and products! 

Key players at the centre of this matter working to decrease this percentage are Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs), created as part of major universities and research institutions. TTOs act as a commercialization arm making sure that intellectual property created by the institution generates monetary value. Among other ways, like licensing and selling IP to corporations and SMEs, this is achieved through the creation of new companies. 

What is the potential of this monetary value? In Finland, for example, 15-20 companies are founded each year with the help of the Research to Business (R2B) program by Business Finland (36% of all Finnish deep tech companies). Spin-off companies from the Finnish VTT, the largest applied research institution in the Nordics, accounting for 10% of the Finnish deeptech startups, raise a significant portion of capital funding invested in the Finnish startup ecosystem. Between 2013 and 2022, startups created at VTT got 8.2% of the total investment haul raised by Finnish startups, a testament to the relevance and appeal of this pipeline of startups. VTT's startups received €526 million out of the €6.4 billion collected by Finnish companies. Among them such names as ICEYE, one of the leading providers of earth imagery in the world, or Solar Foods who make food out of thin air (read more about Solar Foods and other foodtech spinoffs here).

An important component TTOs need to deal with in their work is attracting investors for their spinoffs. We are very fond of this topic due to our experience with VTT, Aalto University, EnergySpin and VITA Accelerator. Hence, we wanted to share our tips on how TTOs could build a strong investment ecosystem for their ventures:

Investor Engagement for TTOs by Boro OY

1. Investor Engagement

Building strong investor relationships requires a consistent strategy. First, an internal investor database is necessary to identify target investors for each industry or segment (generic deeptech, cleantech, foodtech, healthteach etc). The sources for the database can be online databases (Pitchbook, Dealroom etc), summary articles on the topic but most importantly, word of mouth through industry networking.

Then, in the same way startups hunt for investor contacts, TTOs need to identify the best way to approach them: inbound requests, direct outreach, attending relevant events,and so on. Getting warm intros from trusted contacts is always the best start for good connections.

Finally, it’s important to adopt a systematic approach to build long-term relationships with investors. A good practice can be to maintain regular calls (for example, quarterly updates) to share your spinoff pipeline and provide relevant updates. 

2. Online Presence & Material

Stimulating entrepreneurial spirit and skills among researchers is a separate topic on its own. However, here we wanted to highlight how TTOs could make a big difference by providing organized, coherent and representative material for investors.

One aspect of it is an online presence, typically initiated with a landing page that aggregates all research projects/spinoffs with short descriptions and links (like here done by the University of Helsinki). Another option is to make available your online database via social Networks like Linkedin, like in the case of Business Tampere. Such assets greatly increase visibility of your future companies.

Tampere Region startup database by Business Tampre

Another component is startup material that TTOs collect in order to later share with relevant investors. By providing an organized template of a startup one-pager / pitch deck and supervising the quality of its content can make a tremendous difference in the communication with investors.

3. Events

Taking part in events may be something that all researchers are not very comfortable with, yet it is absolutely essential for ecosystem development. Again, TTOs can bring a lot of value for their companies here by: 

Hosting their own industry dedicated events where relevant audience of experts and investors is invited for the startup showcase 

Develop a strategy for external industry events like meetups and conferences. It could start from creating a calendar of relevant events in the area and encouraging the startups to participate and evolve into an organized delegation to big conferences where TTOs can help with visibility, booth, pitching stages and 1-1 meetings with investors.