Little and large
How IXC® UK brings micro-company ideas to the multi-national party
When a university spin-out company enlisted IXC's support in growing collaboration opportunities for its network of advanced materials and medical technologies micro-businesses, it expected that the intermediary's involvement would lead to new revenue streams.
What it didn't anticipate was IXC's ability to establish connections between its tiny, medical technology and nanotechnology start-ups and a major, global food manufacturer.
Within just a couple of months of working with the micro-businesses the IXC Intermediary® had identified a range of transferable technologies with potential applications far beyond the medical fields for which they were created and had also facilitated introductions for a number of these micro-businesses.
The technologies involved ranged from "encapsulates" (getting water into products) which, the intermediary discovered, is as highly prized in food manufacture as medical technologies, to a potential, alternative application for transdermal drug-delivery technology which may improve the taste of processed foodstuffs.
A third potential, alternative application for nano-technology was also identified.
With all of the micro-businesses intent on seeking applications within the medical and pharmaceutical sectors, the relevance of their technology to other sectors was easily over-looked. Even if one of the start-ups had recognized its potential in other sectors, the sheer size and scale of the multi-nationals renders them impenetrable to such small companies.
Similarly, it is unlikely the global
manufacturer would ever have found these micro-businesses, even if they had
thought to access companies operating in the medical technology sector.
