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December 05, 2004
NW tech transfer slow, but growing
The Seattle Times reported this week on tech transfer at the Northwest's research institutions. The conclusion, not to anyone's supries in the venture business, is that the tech transfer process up hear is behind other areas of the country. No Google's created up here from U of W inventions (thanks Stanford).
Why are start-ups slow to come out of NW research institutes? I believe it is more about process and people than a lack of ideas. Here at Ignition we have done one such deal in Terranode (the founders of which are the poster photos for the ST article). The process was frought with way more paperwork than necessary. But Joe Duncan, the CEO is ex-Oracle and a serious software guy. He had the tenacity to see the process through and attract a world class team. Recently, Accelerator Corp. was started with alot of NW partners to, you guessed it, accelerate the process of getting life science inventions from research to market. They will initially be focused on life sciences physical technologies (drugs, treatments, devices), so I would doubt we will see alot of software inventions initially, but we are at the head end of this process.
I predict the NW catches up in the area of research to start-ups over the next 10 years.
Posted by Martin at December 5, 2004 12:56 PM
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