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Our aim is to create investment ready technologies, helping to bridge the gap between the laboratory and the market.  We conduct early stage technology development (proof of concept) projects within the Physical Sciences and Engineering domains. Our  commercially focused projects use a multidisciplinary team whose aim is to address the key concerns of prospective customers.

Our focus is on ideas originating from academia, although the sources of ideas submitted to us are many and varied and include multinational companies, SMEs, lone inventors and VCs. Areas of particular interest to TfI are:

Medical Devices

Renewable Energy

Information & Communication Technologies

Nanotechnology

TfI encourages researchers to share ideas that they would normally never disclose due to a lack of time, expertise or resources. All ideas disclosed are expanded upon and analysed with no cost to the researcher or university, and detailed feedback is given as to the commercial potential of their idea. We pay the researcher an upfront bonus for any chosen concepts that become commercialisation projects.

To turn the concept into an investment ready technology, various activities are undertaken during the project including market evaluation, IP evaluation & protection and technology prototyping. TfI develops chosen concepts, adding new IP, in our laboratories using our own scientists and engineers. Our extended network of expert advisors and partners support these developments and the subsequent sales process.

We aim to sell or license the proven technology either directly to end customers or in conjunction with our partners who conduct any subsequent product development work for the end customers. Any profits from sales are shared with the university and researcher.

For more information on our philosophy and approach to Proof of Concept, see this book extract written by the founders of Technology from Ideas.