NASA Announces Results of Pilot Program With yet2.com

April 6, 2011

HOUSTON, April 6, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ — NASA’s Space Life Sciences Directorate (SLSD) at the Johnson Space Center in Houston announced results of a pilot program conducted by yet2.com that identified partnerships to work on six technical needs related to human spaceflight. The needs range from better food packaging materials to a portable bone-imaging device.

SLSD engaged the services of open innovation service provider yet2.com as part of a series of pilot programs during the last two years. In an effort to expand open communication and to create additional opportunities for public involvement with NASA, open innovation service provider (OISP) platforms are under evaluation.

“Open innovation has been a critical component of SLSD’s broader innovation strategy,” said Jeffrey R. Davis, director of SLSD. “This strategy has strengthened our ability to make connections with organizations to address our research and technology needs that we would not have known about using more traditional approaches. Given the favorable results achieved through this pilot study, we will continue to pursue the use of OISP as one tool in our innovation toolkit.”

Based on NASA’s specific technological needs, yet2.com acted as a technology scout, providing a broad external network of experts as potential collaborators with NASA. A relationship can be established with these contacts to develop new technologies. Yet2.com’s system also can be used to maintain established networks for future collaborations. The results from the pilot study show potential for long-term efficacy of OISP platforms.

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Driving a Successful Exit

March 29, 2011

Over the past 10 years, yet2 has facilitated hundreds of transactions with the Fortune 500, on 3 continents.  Most of these have been between successful start ups and a large multinationals, and they cover a wide range of technology.  While each transactions is different, I thought I’d share a few navigational insights to help successful start-ups drive an exit or form a partnership.

The first thing to understand is that large companies rarely act with one voice.  While they try to, they don’t.  They are a collection of individuals each with motivations and fears.   Most of employees of these firms have 3 questions in mind, 1) How can I represent my company well? 2) Will this help get me promoted? 3) Will this minimize the chance for me to get fired?

Usually, it’s in the best interest of the LargeCo to delay and do more diligence or testing.  Unless they are about to lose the opportunity, they have every motivation to ‘do one more test’.  More testing and diligence helps prevent the decision-makers from getting fired.  In this sense, Large companies may be price agnostic, meaning they would much rather pay $200 million for a technology they know works, than $5 million for one that ‘needs fixing’.  This is how to get promoted, and not fired. Read the rest of this entry »

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Innovation Outside of the Box

March 3, 2011

Innovation is all about taking the common and regular, and changing it for the better. Here is a quick video about the reinvention of the shoe box by Puma.  At yet2ventures, we are fascinated by breakthrough consumer packaging.

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3 Tips for Starting a Business

March 1, 2011

I read this article and thought it was worth sharing….enjoy – Ben

(Editor’s note: Doug Collom is vice dean and an adjunct lecturer on venture capital and entrepreneurship for Wharton|San Francisco. He submitted this story to VentureBeat. I reprinted it here)

Starting companies is hard.  And it’s critical to make sure that your venture is pointing in the right direction from the moment it leaves the launch pad. Any misdirection or miscue on the basic organizational steps can be fatal.

It’s a lot like launching a rocket aimed at the moon—if the launch is only 2 degrees off target at blast-off, it will miss by hundreds of thousands of miles.

There’s no end to the advice and opinions entrepreneurs will hear in a company’s early days, but three basic rules that every company founder should take into consideration:

Keep it simple – In setting up the capital structure and the first equity of the company, many founders either try to innovate or try to accommodate the wishes and desires of every co-founder and early stage employee. The result is too much complexity.

In most cases where there is more than one founder (probably on the order of over 80 percent of startups), the stock should be split equally. If it isn’t an even split, then you should re-evaluate whether your co-participants really deserve to be in the “founder” category. Establish uniform stock vesting provisions that apply equally to both founders (although maybe with some “credit” for pre-formation activities) and early stage employees. Read the rest of this entry »

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Users Guide to Silicon Valley

February 23, 2011

Starting in the fall last year I began spending at least a week a month in the Valley. I came across this great article by Steve Blank which describes a bunch of things to do in the Valley…. it almost a beginner guide to Silicon Valley. I highly recommend the read – Ben

If you’re a visiting dignitary whose country has a Gross National Product equal to or greater than the State of California, your visit to Silicon Valley consists of a lunch/dinner with some combination of the founders of Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter and several brand name venture capitalists. If you have time, the President of Stanford will throw in a tour, and then you can drive by Intel or some Clean Tech firm for a photo op standing in front of an impressive looking piece of equipment.

The “official dignitary” tour of Silicon Valley is like taking the jungle cruise at Disneyland and saying you’ve been to Africa. Because you and your entourage don’t know the difference between large innovative companies who once were startups (Google, Facebook, et al) and a real startup, you never really get to see what makes the valley tick.

If you didn’t come in your own 747, here’s a guide to what to see in the valley (which for the sake of this post, extends from Santa Clara to San Francisco.) This post offers things to see/do for two types of visitors: I’m just visiting and want a “tourist experience” (i.e. a drive by the Facebook / Google / Zynga / Apple building) or “I want to work in the valley” visitor who wants to understand what’s going on inside those buildings.

I’m leaving out all the traditional stops that you can get from the guidebooks.

Hackers’ Guide to Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is more of a state of mind than a physical location. It has no large monuments, magnificent buildings or ancient heritage. There are no tours of companies or venture capital firms. From Santa Clara to South San Francisco it’s 45 miles of one bedroom community after another. Yet what’s been occurring for the last 50 years within this tight cluster of suburban towns is nothing short of an “entrepreneurial explosion” on par with classic Athens, renaissance Florence or 1920’s Paris. Read the rest of this entry »

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The next killer app – How Open Innovation Will Change Drug Developement

January 29, 2011

This is an interesting article available here in Sunday’s Boston Globe. I wrote a very similar article on how digital exhaust will cure cancer. I think people will have the ability to opt out/in of large scale medical studies on each of our collective digital exhaust to better understand the cause and effect of various ailments. Add to this, transparency in the food supply (so that we will know what came from where), and we will have some very interesting data on which to develop new therapies. This is a fascinating topic – Ben

Online communal wisdom should be harnessed for drug development

NEW DRUGS are subject to exhaustive critical scrutiny, yet there has never been a corresponding effort to collect reports of drugs delivering unexpected benefits. If open innovation can lead to the creation of the world’s most complete encyclopedia, a top-selling cleaning duster, and the game Angry Birds, it’s time to ask whether this approach might be used to capture the exceptional untapped value associated with existing drugs, and to power the discovery of important new medicines.

Half a century ago, astute clinicians noticed that patients receiving the new anti-tuberculosis drug iproniazid experienced an enhanced sense of well-being, a chance observation that led directly to the development of antidepressants and the birth of psychopharmacology. More recently, an unexpected side effect reported by patients in a clinical trial of a drug for chest pain led to the development of Viagra.

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Deloro Signs LOI For The Acquisition Of New Heavy Oil Property at the Wilkie Project

January 26, 2011

Electro Petroleum is a yet2Ventures portfolio company, and it’s the key partner to Deloro – Ben

January 25, 2011 Deloro Resources Ltd. (TSX.V – DLL) is pleased to announce that the Company has entered into a Letter of Intent for the acquisition of a new heavy oil property adjoining the Wilkie project in Saskatchewan.

The proposed new acquisition includes 320 acres containing the rights to petroleum from surface to the top of the Precambrian, 120 acres containing the rights to petroleum and natural gas from the base of the Mannville to the top of the Precambrian and 840 acres containing the rights to petroleum and natural gas from surface to the top of the Precambrian. This property will be acquired from Canadian Natural Resources for the sum of $15,000.00 and the assumption of all environmental and reclamation obligations.
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Ganeden Biotech’s Strain of Probiotics Proves Very Effective

January 25, 2011

Ganeden Biotech is a yet2Ventures portfolio company – Ben

New Study Catalogues Evidence for Probiotic, Bacillus coagulans

Review paper supports multiple health claims for specific Bacillus coagulans strain, GanedenBC30®

Cleveland (PRWEB) January 25, 2011

A new paper examining recent research and safety data published in the peer-reviewed journal Food Science and Technology Bulletin provides scientific support for Bacillus coagulans as a probiotic. The overview supports the use of probiotics in general and discusses a specific Bacillus coagulans strain, known as GanedenBC30 (Bacillus coagulans GBI-30, 6086), manufactured by consumer healthcare company Ganeden Biotech, for its probiotic attributes. The study summarizes how GanedenBC30 supports its health claims related to safety, gastrointestinal health, immune health, joint health and includes never before published data.

“Probiotic strains have been traditionally limited to Lactobacillus and Bifidobacterium,” explained Dr. Glenn Gibson, one of the world’s leading probiotic experts and co-author of the paper. “The evaluation of this recent data shows great promise for Bacillus coagulans as a new type of probiotic that’s come to the forefront.” Read the rest of this entry »

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yet2.com forms yet2Ventures investment fund and teams up with Japan’s JAIC

January 24, 2011

Tokyo, Japan and Boston, MA USA, 24 January 2011 — yet2.com has formed yet2Ventures, a fund created to help Fortune 500 firms and other owners of venture capital investments drive value in their portfolio companies. We can provide follow-on investment and liquidity to help small companies grow. We are excited about this effort and believe yet2.com is uniquely positioned to help portfolio companies grow with:

  • Our global network, with offices in Tokyo, Boston, Liverpool, and Wilmington
  • Our IP experience
  • Our technology licensing experience
  • And, now our capital

Venture funding is an excellent fit with the established yet2.com market, where we help large and small companies connect on new and robust technologies.

Our first joint investment with JAIC is in Avantis Medical Systems of Sunnyvale, California. They develop and manufacture catheter-based endoscopic devices for detecting and treating cancer in the GI tract.

The yet2Ventures fund is a good partnership opportunity for VC firms and other strategic investors. Perhaps we can help your portfolio grow, too? Please contact us at:venturefund@yet2.com.

About JAIC

Japan Asia Investment Co., Ltd. (JAIC) is an independent venture capital company founded in 1981 by the Japan Association of Corporate Executives (Keizai Doyukai). JAIC’s operations are centered on three geographic hubs — Japan, Asia, and the United States. In these regions, JAIC provides financial support for companies in various stages of development from promising venture enterprises to companies with succession or business reorganization needs, or firms looking to revitalize their businesses. In addition, JAIC seeks to stimulate growth and raise the corporate value of invested companies by providing support on the management side as well. These include supplying information, consulting for initial public offerings (IPO), and business matching.

About yet2.com

yet2.com provides intellectual property consulting and licensing services to world-class clients around the globe. Yet2.com Inc and its online marketplace were founded in 1999 to promote Open Innovation, with original investments from Siemens, Bayer, Honeywell, DuPont, Procter & Gamble, Caterpillar, and NTT Leasing. The privately held company has offices in the United States, Europe, and Japan. The web site now has over 120,000 registered marketplace users including many of the Fortune 500 and over 16,000 smaller technology companies. In addition to its core team, yet2.com has created a wide network of Open Innovation partners covering many of the technology-rich countries around the world as well as relationships with open innovation organizations, technical expert networks, SME networks, technical magazines, online technical communities, and technology brokers. These provide market-wide access to technologies and needs in countries such as Russia, China, India, Korea, Brazil, South Africa, Japan, the US, and the EU. For more information, visit www.yet2.com or contact Tim Bernstein 1-781-972-0600.

 

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yet2.com Webinar – Successfully marketing your technologies to non-traditional customers

January 7, 2011

Please join us for our next FREE webinar — 20 January 2011 at 11:00 am – 12:30 pm EST US. (8:00 am PST. 17:00 UK.)

Register here: https://www2.gotomeeting.com/register/437414154

Most companies know their regular customers very well. But how can you best market your technologies to non-traditional customers? In yet2.com’s next FREE webinar, three highly experienced marketers share their views on capitalizing on the growing desire for externally developed technology by chemical, materials, and consumer products companies.

Speakers include:

  • Ben du Pont, President, yet2.com and yet2Ventures

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