UK's Angle Technology Ventures Bring Smart Money Early to Tech Transfer

Angle Technology Ventures of Guildford, Surrey, UK, is looking to get closer to the font of innovation, seeking to invest in American university-developed intellectual property with seed-stage funding and commercialization assistance such as management and consulting, known as “smart money” in venture capital parlance.

The firm is investing primarily in the information-technology and life-sciences sectors and has opened US offices in Vienna, Va., and Philadelphia, in addition to its office in the Surrey Research Park in the UK. It has made an undisclosed initial investment in forming Aberro, a Vienna, Va.-based startup that is developing a software testing application.

Angle appears to be looking to carve out a upstream niche in the tech-transfer value chain, and do the work that many universities are seeking their tech transfer offices to perform.

Certainly Angle doesn't have the capacity to handle a great volume of this type of tech incubation, and assumes a greater risk profile than typical venture capital firms in taking on promising ideas -- before business plans are created, before executives are hired. And, perhaps most importantly, before significant equity is created, leaving the investment liable to dilution when later-stage investors step in -- if the project has any sort of commercial promise.

The firm, according to an article in the Washington Business Journal, has $14 million in funds for investment in the US.

Certainly tech transfer is a bottleneck in innovation. Many promising ideas in academia or in other non-profit institutions don't cross the commercialization chasm because of a dearth of early-stage funding or professional management, or a scientist/inventor simply lacking an appetite for entrepreneurship.

Still, academia is fast becoming an engine of innovation in the biotechnology sector as few public companies, under pressure for quarter-to-quarter growth, are able to engage in long-term research efforts without an immediate economic payoff.

David Counts, a molecular biologist trained at the Medical College of Georgia, recently joined Angle Technology Ventures from Ben Franklin Technology Partners, where he was director of life sciences, and will be based in Philadelphia.