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Entrepreneurship Roundtable Event: Minutes
October 22, 2012
12:00-1:00 p.m.
The Senate Room
MINUTES
UofC Team:
Frank Maurer (AVPR)
Tara Younker (EA to
AVPR)
Innovate Calgary Team:
Peter Garrett- Interim President
David Edmonds- Executive in Residence (IP to company)
Stace Wills- Vice President, Company Creations
Helen Shannon- Manager, Portfolio Development
Jessie Kubes- Licensing Manager (Licensing from ideas to
IP)
1. Innovate Calgary- Peter Garrett Presenting
o What Innovate Calgary is doing and what they can do for you.
o Innovate Calgary is much more than what UTI used to be, have significant business expertise to help you
commercialize your ideas. Here to service our client and make it a win-win partnership.
o CIT and UTI have come together under one brand- Innovate Calgary which also ties in the general
Calgary community.
o If you were to benchmark across Canada for universities, U of C is running at two thirds in terms of
inventing. We want to the U of C to be the leaders in Canada.
2. Presentation
o Peter Garrett gave a general overview of Innovate Calgary
o Jessie Kubes presented on Licensing
o David Edmonds presented on IP to company
o PowerPoint presentation to be made available along with minutes
3. Questions from attendees
a. Revenue agreement-- 50/50 share of revenue, explain how it works? Innovate incurs all of the
down-size risk, and risk is a key factor. What about Angel investors? In terms of company creation
it depends on the company. If Innovate is infusing cash they want equity to cycle into the next
company. Innovate Calgary is in the game of getting money out as fast they can, in order to invest in
another company. How much value are we bringing to the table in terms of equity we would want?
b.
c.
d.
e.
f.
They will invest in you and the financial risk of marketing the idea. The individual license or patent
may carry legal risk; if there are problems, they incur the risk. Patent expenses up front in terms of
marketing. Any patent expenses- try to get the licenses to pay up front. As soon as some of the
portion of patent comes they ensure the researcher get their portion of the license as quickly as
they can. Not the related technology expenses.
Research Grant Proposals- Innovate Calgary is available to help with research grant proposals at the
early stages, get us engaged; we can provide advice on who to address as well as advice on
commercialization grants.
Metrics regarding industry orientated research- the academic plan identified Knowledge Translation
and Technology Transfer as a key for the university to move forward.
Company start up: could you comment on the strategy for early start up cash for bio- technology
education type companies, what expertise do you have and where would you go for financing?
Venture capitalists do not have a good track record for bio tech, they are much more skeptical; they
want new concepts of drugs to be further advanced. They now want independent verification
before they invest. Given that reality the gap is even bigger than it has been in the past. There are
two companies in their portfolio (Pharma and medical Device), it can be done with the right partner,
and it can be done outside of Alberta. You have to take a North America wide view at raising funds.
There are a number of options in Canada that we can access. Earlier stage- there is an Angel
network; it is currently not heavily invested in bio-tech it is mostly in ICT. We are striving for 1000
Angel investors. Not an easy problem to solve, doing the best we can.
Government Venture Capitalists- a number of initiatives both federal and provincial have taken
place. One hundred million dollars has been funded by the provincial government to track Venture
Capitalists in Alberta that have a predisposition to invest in Alberta. Ninety million out of Hundred
have been committed; Venture Capitalists are in place in Alberta. This past year has seen more
investment by VC’s in AB companies than previously. There are a number of government programs,
Innovate is helping the government define them at the early stages, so there is a lot of support for
funding.
Are you investing in companies that do not base their profile on Intellectual Properties (IP) and there
are other means than using funds to finance a startup? ICT companies are not really IP place
marketing opportunity but not creating IP in the case of pure service companies- that is not the
space they play in and most likely wouldn’t invest. Exploring alternative ways of funding a new
company -Innovate Calgary is quite resourceful in equity investment- which is one option as well as
a variety of other options.