Q&A Interview With CEO of Tekcapital; Open Innovation Network Enables Companies to Research and Acquire Game Changing Technology

Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer Explains How Access to Ground Breaking Technology From Over 3300 Universities Can Help Companies Take the Lead in Their Sector


NEW YORK, NY and POINT ROBERTS, WA--(Marketwired - Dec 17, 2013) - Investorideas.com issues an exclusive interview with Mr. Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer of Tekcapital. Dr. Gross shares insight into his company's discovery search engine which identifies intellectual properties from 3300 plus universities and how they are enabling companies to gain market leadership over their competition with access to next- generation technology.

Q: Investorideas.com
Can you give a brief background on the history of the Company and how the database and network were developed?

A: Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer
Tekcapital was established by a team of Oxford University, Said business school graduates in June 2012. The problem that we sought to solve was how to help companies profit from new university-developed technologies and intellectual properties. As the pace of innovation has dramatically accelerated firms of all sizes have found it more difficult to remain competitive technologically by relying on in-house developed innovations and intellectual properties. Globally, universities produce roughly 100,000 new patents each year, yet 80% of these discoveries fail to be used commercially. We realized that this was in part due to market inefficiency. To address this we developed a market driven, turn-key solution to make it easy for companies to find, review and acquire the intellectual properties they need to improve and protect their products. The unique service we have developed incorporates global discovery search, objective scientific review of technologies and industry leading university to business transaction experience to help secure the deal.

The first step was to make the global university supplier network easily accessible. We achieved this by developing a new search engine that directly reaches into the technology commercialization offices of the world's leading research institutions. Currently, there are approximately 15,000 research institutions spread out over 160 countries. The top 3,300 of these institutions produce roughly 80% of the world's peer-reviewed, university-based, published scientific research. We believe, as do many of clients, that these institutions are the engine room for global technology development. So now, for the first time, we have made it easy for clients to find new developments available in any field of science, technology or medicine. Finding these technologies is just the first step. We provide actionable information for our clients, which mean technologies that fit our clients' needs and where the science has been vetted and verified by a subject matter expert. For this process we developed a science advisory council that could in real-time, objectively evaluate new intellectual properties for our clients. The final and most important step was to build a team that had significant technology acquisition experience. Our management team, collectively have closed more than 400 transactions from universities to businesses of all sizes.

Q: Investorideas.com
Can you give us some examples of the types of clients you assist and what sectors they are in? 

A: Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer
Clients usually engage us for one of two reasons. Either they are seeking to enhance their pipeline of intellectual properties to improve their innovation capabilities or they have identified a weakness in their intellectual property portfolio that they want to fill, to better protect their intellectual property. Clients range in size from early-stage firms to multi-nationals. Their sectors cover, new materials, medical devices, drugs, diagnostics, electronics, software, cloud computing, consumer products, energy and nutraceuticals.

Q: Investorideas.com
We are seeing technology advance faster than we could have imagined at this time in history. We have witnessed a lot of big companies disappear like dinosaurs because they didn't see what was coming next. Can you give us some insight as to what you are seeing first hand at the university level and how tapping into this rapid technology development can really impact the next phase of growth for companies?

A: Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer
Like individuals, companies have life spans. What's interesting is unlike individuals, the life-span of companies is becoming shorter as a result of the quickening pace of innovation. With the development and wide spread use of social networks, smart phones and tablets the innovation pace is continuing to accelerate. It's pretty easy to miss not only the next big development but perhaps the next five big developments in your space; primarily because they are not occurring inside of your organization and are not under your control. The net effect is technological obsolescence or market irrelevance. In our opinion, no amount of capital or historic brand luster can neutralize these corporate risks without the right strategy. We have re-imagined R&D primarily an external function, augmented by in-house development and marketing. For many companies this is a difficult concept to embrace as it requires the ability to relinquish the illusion of control over the technology development trajectory and tolerate the ambiguity of external innovation based on the fact that the majority of the world's finest minds reside outside of your organization. Once a firm understands and accept this concept, addressing the need for continuous innovation becomes a lot more manageable.

Q: Investorideas.com
For companies interested in your services can you give a brief explanation of how the relationship with Tekcapital, the university and the client works?

A: Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer
It's very straight forward. We are engaged under a retained relationship by our clients and we receive success fees upon closing transactions. For the universities of the world we are a no-cost channel partner that results in increased review and acquisition of their intellectual properties.

Q: Investorideas.com
Your Company has attracted an impressive executive management team: can you tell our readers the common vision that brought the team together?

A: Clifford M. Gross, Ph.D., Chief Executive Officer
We believe a company will never be better than the team that drives it forwards. As a team we are passionate about creating marketplace value from university intellectual property for our clients and seeing new innovations enter the market that can improve the quality of life.

About Tekcapital, Ltd. - The World's Largest University Network for Open Innovation

Tekcapital helps clients profit from new, university-developed intellectual properties. With our proprietary discovery search engine, linked to 3,300+ universities in 160 countries, coupled with expert scientific review, we provide a turn-key service to make it easy for clients to find and acquire the IP they need to create a competitive advantage. www.tekcapital.com

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