SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders
915 He Hunts Down University IP and Figures Out How to Commercialize at Scale
25 Jan 2018
Chapter 1: What is the focus of Tech Capital and how do they operate?
This is the Top Entrepreneurs Podcast, where founders share how they started their companies and got filthy rich or crash and burn. Each episode features revenue numbers, customer counts, and other insider information that creates business news headlines. We went from a couple hundred thousand dollars to 2.7 million. I had no money when I started the company.
It was $160 million, which is the size of many IPOs. We're a bit strapped. We have like 22,000 customers. With over 5 million downloads in a very short amount of time, major outlets like Inc. are calling us the fastest growing business show on iTunes. I'm your host, Nathan Latka, and here's today's episode.
Chapter 2: How does Tech Capital generate revenue from university IP?
Hello, everyone. Our guest today is Cliff Gross. He serves as the CEO of Tech Capital. He's passionate about the development and commercialization of university IP to improve the quality of life and create lasting value. Previously, he founded Biomechanics Corp and UTech, where he served as CEO and chairman and was president and CEO of InnovaCorp, a provincial venture fund of Canada.
Cliff, are you ready to take us to the top?
Absolutely. To the apex.
Good. Very good.
Chapter 3: What recent success stories has Tech Capital experienced?
All right. Tell us what Tech Capital is and what's the model. How do you guys generate returns for yourself?
Tech Capital is a UK-based intellectual property investment company. And we generate revenues by providing services to universities and companies around the world, as well as acquiring and investing in what we believe are promising university discoveries.
And give me a real example of that. Tell me about the last deal you did.
We have multiple portfolio companies, but one of the technologies that we've invested in was actually in the category of medical devices. And we set up a portfolio company called Bellascura, and we acquired a range of medical devices from a leading medical device company. And Bellascura has been doing terrific since its inception in 2018. our best success story today.
What does that have to do with universities? Well, a lot of the technology when you deconstruct it comes from universities, even though it may be in the hands of a corporation.
Okay. And what, like, how are you having to negotiate with the universities to make sure, like, you know, you don't owe them 50% of the revenue because the business did a bad deal to get the IP in the first place?
Oh, no, no. Let me explain how it works. First, you start with the network. So we've built what we hundred universities in our network online.
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Chapter 4: How does Tech Capital negotiate IP deals with universities?
What does that mean in your network?
Well, we built an electronic network where we capture the intellectual properties available for license from universities in 160 countries. And then we mine those intellectual properties for the ones that hopefully have the highest potential. And so this is, it's really leveraging the university idea factory writ large.
How do you measure with such a big data set? I mean, what factors go into you trying to determine what's going to be a big success and what's not?
It's a couple of things. Well, we have certain themes that we like to invest around. And of course, when we're engaged by a client, they give us the theme that they're interested in looking at properties for. What we do is we have 60 science advisors and different verticals that do the initial due diligence on properties that are of interest to us.
And then we have another business called Invention Evaluator that assesses the market potential of those discoveries. And then we make a decision like any investment committee would as to whether or not we want to acquire the rights to those properties and commercialize them.
So what sectors do you like focusing on?
There's a couple, actually. One of them is making food healthier. And we've acquired a couple of really neat technologies in that sector. From what university? One was from the University of Arkansas. we've acquired two technologies.
One is actually a new form of salt, a new way of manufacturing table salt that has, in the table salt version of it, it has 78% less sodium, so it's healthier for the users. And then another area that we're keen on is augmented reality. We've acquired a portfolio of 13 optics patents from the University of Central Florida,
that allow you to make free-form optics designs in glasses that are lightweight, not bulky, and should look like normal glasses. So we're very keen on augmented reality.
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Chapter 5: What strategies does Tech Capital use to assess market potential?
And then if we are successful in commercializing them, it will be a win for us as well as for the research institution and the faculty members that worked on the idea.
And is this like what we typically see where they're taking like a five, a 10, a 20% royalty?
Yeah, royalties are correct. Royalties vary depending upon the industry. Certain industries have razor-thin margins, as you know, and others are more lucrative, so you can have larger royalty rates. So it really depends on the industry what the royalties are.
For augmented reality, what's the typical royalty range?
I think 5% would be the right ballpark.
Okay, and why does the University of Florida do this deal with you instead of selling these things to someone more well-positioned to commercialize, like a Google or an Apple?
Well, I guess if they could, they would. You know, it's a somewhat opportunistic market. It's a buyer's market in general. If you step back and look at universities worldwide, they're producing more than 100,000 intellectual properties a year, and they have perhaps a million in inventory that have gone unsold or licensed.
So really, there's a big chasm between university IP and creating marketable technology. And our job is to select properties, hopefully sagaciously, so we can help cross that chasm by adding value and making them ready to license or commercialize with large partners.
Guys, I get asked all the time, Nathan, you host all these interviews, hundreds of them per month. How do you do them efficiently? And guys, the answer is simple. People always agree to my calendar, back-to-back meetings. I batch my interviews to stay very efficient. And the way that I do it is I use a tool called Acuity Scheduling at nathanlatka.com forward slash schedule.
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Chapter 6: Which sectors does Tech Capital prioritize for investment?
I said, no. He's given us a 45-day free trial at nathanlatka.com forward slash schedule. That's not gonna stay up forever. So go get it now. nathanlatka.com forward slash schedule. Now, when you do these deals like the one with University of Florida, I know you said you acquire them relatively inexpensively, but that's relative.
And I don't know enough about you to know what that might actually be. I mean, are we talking less than a million bucks or more than a million bucks?
Less than a million. And it's the University of Central Florida.
Central. OK, sorry about that. University of Central Florida. So, OK, good. So you get it for less than a million bucks. You pay royalties, you know, call it five ish percent over time once you commercialize. And how what are you funded by? Did you I mean, is this like a venture capital fund? You have LPs or how does it work?
Uh, we, uh, we started the company in 2014 was incorporated and we did a listing on the aim, which is the junior market of the, uh, London stock exchange. And so our, our capital came from primarily from.
And how much did you raise? Uh, around $9 million. Okay. Got it. And, and what, um, how many deals will you like to spread or how much time will that $9 million last you?
We don't need capital at this point. Business is really flying. You know, in the first six months of this year, we did 3.8 million in sales and we made about a million and a half dollars. Our service revenue is up. We have portfolio companies that are maturing very rapidly.
So the only time we'll actually go and get any additional capital is if there are opportunities that we want to sort of jump on that are beyond our current capital.
You said in Q1, you did 3.8 million top line or in the first half of 2017?
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Chapter 7: What is the structure of deals with universities for IP acquisition?
And the appreciation of our portfolio companies. We have seven of them. So the services, just really, we have three services that we provide to companies and universities around the world. One is invention discovery.
When a company wants to identify promising new university technologies that may give their particular product lines a boost, we will produce a report for them that will identify technologies available for immediate license in a particular sector that the company's interested in. So those are invention discovery reports. Then we have another service called- Well, hold on.
What do people pay on average for that first one?
Well, it really depends on the scope of the assignment. It's highly variable. It's a bespoke service, very knowledge intensive. So it really depends.
Are we talking $10,000 or $10 million?
No, I would, you know, more, you know, 10,000-ish, 50,000. It depends on the extent of the assignment. And the assignments usually last a month. And often they're repeated. Some clients are on board now since the very inception. They keep repurchasing the service. They don't want to miss something exciting that might be going on at one of the major universities in the world.
And when was Inception?
Well, again, the business was Tech Capital PLC was incorporated in 2014.
Okay, but was that the start? Or did you do something before that? And then, you know, you worked on a few years and then incorporated?
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Chapter 8: How does Tech Capital's team structure support its mission?
Is this just you at Tech Capital, or how many folks are on the team?
We have 15 people inside full-time, and we have 60 people part-time, which are scientists that do the deep dive and due diligence on the technologies. And we're constantly adding to the team.
And where's home? Where's the headquarter?
It's in Oxford, England, and we also have an office in Miami and one in Singapore.
Very good. Cliff, let's wrap up here with the famous five. These are quick one-word answers. Number one, what's your favorite business book?
There's two, if you don't mind. That's okay. They're sort of alter egos. One is Startup Nation, which the other is Sam Lloyd's Chest Problems. So those are the two. What was the second one? Sam Lloyd's Chest Problems.
sand lloyd's chess problems and what's that about sam like samuel sam lloyd uh was a great chess strategist he wrote a brilliant book on on solving chess problems and you know he shows you positions on the board and then you have to sort of figure out uh you know meeting two meeting three etc and so it's a terrific intellectual exercise which is sort of the uh the essence of what startup nation
in Israel.
Number two, Cliff, is there a CEO you're following or studying right now?
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