A Matchmaker For Inventors

The article "A Matchmaker For Inventors" describes a company which could possibly help bring our centrifuge project into the mainstream. UTEK Corporation can commercialize the separation device used in our company's centrifuge project. UTEK would be able to pay the research labs for the licensing rights to the idea. UTEK has had more hits than misses and could pay huge benefits to our company.

UTEK, a technolgy matchmaker with an unusual business model, gives researchers an outlet for their ideas. It also provides companies with access to a database of more than 35,000 discoveries that would have otherwise gone unnoticed. When researchers at the University of North Carolina A&T discovered a way to find microscopic cracks in an airplane fuselage, they turned to UTEK due to the fact they were finding their product nearly impossible to sell. UTEK found Materials Technology Inc., which soon signed a contract to commercialize the technology.

Unlike other tech-transfer companies, UTEK will pay the research labs for licensing rights to the discovery. It then agrees to sell those rights to the client company for shares of stock, which UTEK agrees to hold for one year. It's possible that UTEK would pay around $500,000 for a discovery and receive $2.5 million worth of a company's stock.

Over the years, UTEK has had more success than failure. The company's successes involve technologies ranging from fertilzing production to pollution monitoring. UTEK, which went public in 2003, now holds equity stakes in 55 companies with a portfolio valued at over $60 million. It shows no signs of slowing down either, adding several thousand discoveries to it's database each year. UTEK would definitely help our company get the word out about our separation device. The company has a proven record and will be able to provide our technology with the light of day it needs to become successful.