Start-ups to close the gap between research and industrial application

Technologies are mainly used in early stages of value chains, i.e. the stage of components and intermediate pro-ducts. Therefore, innovation processes are necessary along the whole value chain, within which a targeted com-bination of "technology push" and "market pull" has to be created. Practice shows, however, that with co-operations between established companies such developments take a long time. This lies mainly in the fact that such projects are neglected for daily business. Therefore, start-ups play a key role in the field of new application, as they facilitate the transfer of research results into products, for example as academic or industrial spin-offs. Generally, start-ups have an advantage in a rapid transfer of ideas into products and short development times.

A problem is that, as a rule, a gap exists between academic research and the commercialisation of the results of the research, which in innovation processes represents a serious barrier. This gap can be best overcome in that Founding Angels, together with appropriate partners from research, found start-up companies to further develop the research results and later, alone or together with an industrial partner, commercialise the technology.