To License, or to go it alone?

This morning I was delighted to share a stage with Ashok Vaidya, an expert in technology development and commercialization, for the Surrey Enterprise Hub's Licensing and Negotiation Workshop. The audience comprised entrepreneurial businesses who are looking for the best way to grow their businesses, and generate profit from their innovations.

Ashok explained how licensing technology to a partner with the capacity to manufacture and sell your product can accelerate the speed of market penetration and result in rapid growth. The downside, as he pointed out, was that sharing the risk of manufacture and marketing also means sharing the rewards! Loss of control was identified as another key concern among the delegates, along with the tricky question of setting royalty levels.

We discussed a number of mechanisms for increasing our negotiating power before getting to grips with a potential licensing partner - essential if you're a small company negotiating with a larger manufacturing business! Over the last four years this has become one of our key challenges at Devant, and I guess we've become a bit fanatical about the benefits of working with smaller companies.

If you have some great technology and are looking for ways to commercialize it without giving away stacks of equity to venture capitalists, licensing could be the way forward. As always, give us a call (0118 988 9670) or drop us an email (info@devant.co.uk) if you'd like to talk through the pros and cons.