In search of the holy grail

Inro, Somnaceutics, Team One Beep — yes, there is a familiar theme with these companies. Commercialising research that originated in universities is a common route to market and one encouraged in New Zealand’s innovation ecosystem.

Inro began when a group of university students approached Fonterra with a concept for automation born out of an international robotics competition. Fonterra didn’t want to own the technology, but was happy to see it commercialised, and made available, on wide distribution.
Somnaceutics took Professor Bob Elliott’s IP and developed a product that tapped into a global market niche. Like Inro, it grew with the help of smart money and was co-founded by Pacific Channel, a life sciences investment and venture capital outfit. In a little over three years, Somnaceutics went from startup to exit, bought by New Image Group. As Somnaceutics’ former CEO (and now GM of New Image’s health sciences division) Guy Wills says, it is a model for successfully commercialising our technology and playing to our strengths.
We’ll have some more of those, thanks.
But are university commercialisation companies the only route to market? Companies like Viclink in Wellington and Waikatolink, to name two, have a track record of successfully taking innovative research to market. But everyone acknowledges there is a gap between good research and the market.
The government says its new system of technology development grants and technology transfer vouchers will help address this country’s poor commercialisation of ideas and low uptake of public research by the private sector. Others aren’t so sure, but at least it is an attempt to bridge the gap.
But every year when we invite startups and fast growth companies to enter the Unlimited Investment Challenge, and put them in front of the country’s top investors, it is obvious there is no shortage of good ideas.
The challenge is in taking them to market. We’ve attempted to address that by assembling a panel of high-flying international Kiwi mentors with plenty of experience in global markets.
Each takes on an Investment Challenge finalist and provides free advice. Actually it’s priceless advice. Jan Zijderveld — recently promoted to president of Unilever Western Europe — and startup FX Bikes have a mentor/mentee relationship; as do Richard Dellabarca — London-based CFO of Chi-X Global and an experienced entrepreneur who is advising Wairarapa-based startup Kiwi Ideas Company, which has developed some cool mesh safety goggles.
I’m not so sure about the name Kiwi Ideas Company, but in Dellabarca the startup has found an incredibly experienced mentor. The same can be said for FX Bikes and Unilever’s Zijderveld, whose company has more than 400 consumer brands in its portfolio.
The mentoring programme is a small step, but it doesn’t answer the bigger question of how to grow the economy. Nor do the government’s tech grants and vouchers, which are just one piece of the puzzle.
Norman Evans, who runs Dunedin’s Upstart incubator, has another answer: empower entrepreneurs. Only innovation led by entrepreneurs will grow the economy in any significant way, he argues, in a paper that raises ideas we will explore more fully in upcoming issues of Unlimited.
That doesn’t just mean commercialising research and innovation from our universities and crown research institutes.
Good ideas can come from anywhere. What matters is selling them, and that’s where experienced entrepreneurs come in.
Upstart offers a programme for entrepreneurs in which they are not expected to work on a startup until they find something they believe in. That’s a little different to the way most incubators work — offering space to startups with an idea already half or fully formed. It’s more a case of pairing experienced entrepreneurs with the right ideas, says Evans. We need more thinking like his.
Let’s grow the right partnerships — and hopefully some great companies — and not get bogged down in thinking there is only one route for innovation to find its way to market.