The Dissertation That Never Left Me: Turning Intellectual Property Into a Business, From an Imperial College Desk to the Boardroom

There are some questions that follow you long after you have submitted the paper.

Mine began at a small desk in London, during my MBA years at Imperial College Business School. I remember the desk more clearly than I remember some of the lectures: a stack of journal articles leaning dangerously to one side, a half-finished coffee going cold, handwritten notes in the margins, and a dissertation draft that seemed to grow heavier every night.

Outside, London was doing what London does best. It was raining. The pavement shone under the streetlights, buses moved slowly through the wet streets, and I was inside trying to make sense of a problem that seemed both obvious and surprisingly neglected:

Why do so many brilliant inventions die in the laboratory?

The science may be excellent. The patent may be valid. The research team may be world-class. Yet the invention never becomes a product, a company, a licensing stream, or a defensible market position.

My supervisor’s feedback was blunt, as good supervision often is. I was treating intellectual property as though it were the destination. He challenged me to ask a more commercially useful question:

“What is the IP supposed to do for the business?”

That question changed the direction of my dissertation. It also stayed with me.

My dissertation was supposed to be an academic exercise. Ten years later, I realise it was the first financial model I ever built for a real problem.

What the dissertation was really asking

The core question was simple to state and difficult to answer:

How do you take intellectual property and turn it into something that generates revenue, attracts funding, and compounds into a competitive advantage while the business grows and scales?

I came to see that IP is not merely a legal artifact stored in a file, waiting for a lawyer to defend it. It is a potential financial asset. But potential is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

An invention becomes commercially valuable only when a company can:

1. Protect what is genuinely defensible.
2. Connect it to a meaningful customer or market problem.
3. Reduce technical, regulatory, and commercial uncertainty.
4. Build a credible route to revenue.
5. Finance the journey without destroying ownership or control.

That is the distinction between owning IP and using IP strategically.

At Imperial, I was surrounded by an ecosystem that made this distinction visible. The university’s commercialisation model considered routes such as licensing, collaboration, and spin-outs, supported by intellectual-property governance and dedicated commercialisation capabilities. The lesson was not that every invention should become a startup. The lesson was that the commercial pathway should be designed deliberately.

Today, when I work with founders and leadership teams, I still think about IP through four lenses:

• Strategic value: Does the IP help us win a market?
• Financial value: Can it support revenue, funding, or financing?
• Defensive value: Does it protect the company from imitation or litigation?
• Option value: Does it create future licensing, partnership, or exit opportunities?

What do you think? Does your company treat IP as a legal cost, or as part of its growth strategy?

The practical ways companies can use intellectual property

There is no single IP monetization strategy. The right structure depends on the asset, the company’s stage, its cash position, and how much control management wants to retain.

Route	How it works	When it may make sense
Licensing	A third party receives rights to use the IP in exchange for fees, milestones, royalties, or a combination	When the company lacks manufacturing, distribution, regulatory, or sales capabilities
Royalty financing	Capital is provided in exchange for a share of future product or portfolio revenue	When there is a credible future revenue stream and the company wants to reduce equity dilution
IP-backed lending	Patents, licences, or related contractual rights may support borrowing, subject to valuation and lender confidence	When the IP is sufficiently mature, enforceable, and connected to cash generation
Strategic partnership	A corporate partner contributes capital, capabilities, data, manufacturing, or market access	When development risk is too high or too expensive to carry alone
Co-development and milestones	Partners fund specific development stages and pay upon technical, regulatory, or commercial achievements	Particularly useful in biotech, medtech, and deep technology
Exclusive commercial niche	The company uses IP to dominate a focused application, geography, workflow, or customer segment	When a specialised market offers strong margins and defensibility
Portfolio strategy	A company builds core, adjacent, and defensive IP around its central technology	When future fundraising, acquisition, or strategic sale is part of the plan
Hybrid financing	Royalties, debt, equity, licensing, and milestone capital are combined	When management needs to balance speed, dilution, risk, and control

Licensing: Revenue and Validation

Licensing is often the most obvious route, but it is not simply a matter of signing a contract and collecting royalties.

A strong licence can provide:

• Upfront cash.
• Milestone payments.
• Ongoing royalties.
• External validation from an industry participant.
• Access to manufacturing, regulatory, and distribution capabilities.

For an early-stage technology company, licensing a non-core application or territory can generate cash while preserving ownership of the most strategically important rights.

The danger is licensing the crown jewel too early, before the company understands its full commercial potential. A cheap licence can become an expensive mistake.

Royalty financing and synthetic royalties

Royalty financing allows a company to raise capital against expected future revenue rather than issuing additional shares. In a biotech business, for example, an investor may provide capital in exchange for a percentage of future product sales or licensing income.

This can be attractive when:

• The product is approaching commercialisation.
• Revenue visibility is improving.
• The company wants to finance late-stage trials or launch activities.
• Existing shareholders want to limit dilution.

It is not free money. The company is exchanging future economics for present capital. The key question is whether the capital accelerates value creation faster than the royalty obligation reduces future returns.

IP-backed lending

Using IP as collateral is appealing in theory and difficult in practice. Lenders need to understand what the asset is worth, how easily it can be transferred, whether it is enforceable, and what happens if the company fails.

Patents are not automatically bankable assets. A patent covering a commercially irrelevant invention may have little financing value. Conversely, a smaller portfolio tied to recurring revenue, strong contracts, and clear freedom to operate may be more useful.

The European Union is actively developing an IP-backed finance framework, including work on valuation standards and a proposed digital marketplace for licensing and transferring IP. Canada and the United States have important pieces of the ecosystem, but neither has yet created a simple, universally accepted lending framework for IP-rich companies.

Partnerships, milestones, and co-development

Strategic partnerships can defer dilution by transferring some development costs to a partner.

In biotech, this might involve:

• A research collaboration.
• A funded clinical milestone.
• A regional licence.
• A manufacturing or distribution agreement.
• An option-to-license structure.

In technology, it may involve a pilot customer, a channel partner, a systems integrator, or a corporate investor.

The best partnerships do more than provide money. They reduce a specific risk.

From R&D to commercialization: A framework for technology and biotech firms

The journey from research to commercialisation is not a single leap. It is a sequence of gates.

1. Stage-gate the IP

At the beginning, companies often overvalue novelty and undervalue defensibility.

The first question should be:

What is actually protectable, enforceable, and commercially relevant?

This requires distinguishing between:

• Core inventions.
• Supporting know-how.
• Trade secrets.
• Data and datasets.
• Software and documentation.
• Regulatory assets.
• Brand and market-positioning assets.
• Interesting research that may never support a business.

Not every research result deserves a patent. Some should remain confidential. Some should be published. Some should be abandoned.

2. Value it early and honestly

An early-stage IP valuation is not a prediction carved into stone. It is a decision tool.

A credible assessment should consider:

• The size and accessibility of the target market.
• The strength and remaining life of the protection.
• Competing technologies.
• Development and regulatory risk.
• Expected adoption.
• Revenue and margin potential.
• The cost of designing around the IP.
• Comparable transactions, where available.

The most useful question is often not “What is the IP worth?” but:

What would a buyer, lender, licensee, or investor actually pay today, and what evidence would change that answer?

3. Fund each stage differently

The capital stack should evolve as uncertainty falls.

Development stage	Typical risk	Potential funding sources
Discovery and proof of concept	Technical feasibility	Grants, university funding, founder capital, tax credits
Prototype or preclinical development	Performance and reproducibility	Non-dilutive programs, strategic partners, seed equity
Clinical or pilot validation	Regulatory, technical, and customer adoption	Venture equity, milestone partnerships, specialised debt
Late-stage development	Execution, manufacturing, and market access	Growth equity, royalty financing, co-development, debt
Commercial scale	Customer acquisition and working capital	Revenue, bank debt, growth capital, strategic investment

In Canada, the SR&ED program can provide a deduction and investment tax credit for eligible R&D expenditures. It is a tax incentive, not a grant, and companies must maintain appropriate technical and financial documentation.

Programs such as ElevateIP support startups and SMEs with IP education, strategy development, protection, and commercialisation. IRAP has also been an important source of technical and business support for Canadian innovation-focused SMEs, although program delivery and broader institutional arrangements should be checked carefully before being incorporated into a funding plan.

4. De-risk before you monetize

The more evidence attached to an asset, the more credible its commercial value becomes.

For a biotech firm, that evidence may include:

• Reproducible preclinical results.
• Clinical efficacy and safety data.
• Regulatory clarity.
• Manufacturing readiness.
• Reimbursement evidence.
• A credible commercial partner.

For a technology firm, it may include:

• A working pilot.
• Customer contracts.
• Retention data.
• Integration proof.
• Security certifications.
• Demonstrated cost savings.

Validation does not eliminate risk. It makes the risk easier to price.

5. Sequence monetization carefully

There are two common mistakes.

The first is monetizing too early, before the asset has been properly de-risked. The second is holding everything too long and running out of cash.

The right sequence may be to:

1. Protect the core invention.
2. Use grants and tax credits to reach proof of concept.
3. Raise equity for the riskiest development.
4. Bring in a strategic partner for validation or market access.
5. Use licensing, royalties, or debt once revenue visibility improves.
6. Retain the most valuable rights for the company’s long-term growth or exit.

6. Build internal ownership

Someone inside the company must own the relationship between IP and financial strategy.

That person does not need to be the chief patent counsel or chief financial officer. But someone must maintain a clear view of:

• What the company owns.
• What it has the right to use.
• What it can commercialize.
• What it must protect.
• What it should license.
• What each asset is expected to contribute financially.

Otherwise, the portfolio becomes an expensive archive.

Canada and the United States: different strengths, different friction

Canada and the United States both offer meaningful support for R&D commercialisation, but they approach the problem differently.

Area	Canada	United States
University IP ownership	No single national Bayh-Dole-style default; ownership and commercialisation rules can vary by institution and agreement	Bayh-Dole generally gives universities and small businesses first rights to inventions arising from federally funded research, subject to conditions
R&D incentives	SR&ED tax deductions and credits; additional programs may support technical development and IP strategy	SBIR/STTR grants, agency programs, tax incentives, and substantial private capital
IP strategy support	ElevateIP, IP Assist, CIPO resources, and regional innovation organisations	University technology-transfer offices, federal agencies, accelerators, and private technology-transfer networks
Commercialisation environment	Strong research base, but fewer scale-up pathways and less consistent commercialisation infrastructure	Deeper venture, corporate, and public procurement markets, but greater compliance complexity
IP-backed finance	Policy attention is increasing, but lender adoption and valuation standards remain uneven	More specialised capital providers, but IP-backed lending is still highly selective
Main challenge	Turning excellent research into companies that scale globally	Navigating competition, compliance, security screening, and complex financing structures

Canada’s policy direction is becoming more commercialisation-focused. The 2025 NSERC–Axelys memorandum of understanding signals greater attention to keeping federally funded research and its economic value in Canada. It is important, however, to describe this accurately: it is a policy and collaboration signal, not a national ownership statute.

Budget 2025 also proposed continued funding for ElevateIP and IP Assist, support for patent-focused initiatives, and an intellectual-property performance review. The direction is encouraging. The honest gap is that Canada remains stronger at producing research than at consistently commercialising and scaling it.

The United States has a deeper commercialisation and private-capital ecosystem. Under the Bayh-Dole framework, eligible organisations can retain rights to inventions arising from federally funded research, while complying with disclosure, reporting, government-licence, and other obligations.

The United States also expanded its funding architecture in 2026. Public Law 119-83 reauthorised SBIR and STTR through September 30, 2031. It created Strategic Breakthrough awards of up to $30 million for eligible companies, subject to a 100% match from new private capital or qualifying non-SBIR/STTR government funding. The law also adds stronger due-diligence and security screening related to foreign involvement, technology development, ownership, and IP.

The US has scale and capital depth. It also has more reporting, contracting, security, and compliance obligations. Neither system removes the need for sound commercial judgement.

Why a strategic finance business partner matters

This is where my dissertation finally connects to the work I do today.

An IP strategy can be legally sophisticated and commercially useless. A funding plan can be ambitious and financially fragile. A company may have an impressive patent portfolio but no credible path to cash flow.

A strategic finance business partner helps connect the parts.

That means:

• Translating IP into investor-grade numbers.
• Building valuation ranges rather than relying on unsupported headline figures.
• Forecasting revenue, milestones, costs, and cash requirements.
• Structuring the capital stack across grants, tax credits, equity, royalties, and debt.
• Stress-testing assumptions before a lender, investor, or strategic partner does.
• Sequencing monetization against runway.
• Coordinating Canadian and US programs, credits, and reporting requirements.
• Acting as the bridge between scientists, lawyers, commercial leaders, and the board.

At RampUp Growth Advisors, our view of strategic finance is practical; model the scenarios, pressure-test the assumptions, and translate strategy into a financial operating plan the company can execute.

For a technology or biotech firm, that discipline can make the difference between an asset that attracts capital and one that remains trapped in development.

The question has not changed

I still remember the dissertation defence: the nervous preparation, the marked-up pages, the effort to explain a complicated idea in plain language, and the strange feeling of closing a chapter that had consumed so many evenings.

But the question from that small desk has never really left me:

How do we turn knowledge into value without losing sight of the capital, timing, and choices required to commercialise it?

Today, the stakes are larger. The assets are more complex. The financing structures are more sophisticated. In biotech, one clinical result can change the value of an entire company. In technology, a competitor can move quickly around a weakly protected invention. In both sectors, time and cash remain unforgiving.

The answer is not to patent everything, raise money at any cost, or license the first attractive offer.

The answer is to treat intellectual property as part of the business architecture: designed around the market, valued against evidence, protected with purpose, and financed stage by stage.

What do you think? Is your company managing its IP as a financial and strategic asset, or mainly as a legal file?

If you are moving from R&D toward commercialisation, fundraising, strategic partnership, or scale, RampUp Growth Advisors would be pleased to have a confidential conversation about the path ahead.

Disclaimer

This article is for general educational and strategic-planning purposes only. It does not constitute legal, tax, accounting, investment, lending, patent, or regulatory advice. Government programs, tax incentives, eligibility requirements, IP rules, and funding legislation may change. Companies should consult qualified legal, tax, accounting, patent, and regulatory professionals before making decisions.

Sources

• Imperial College London: Intellectual Property and Research Commercialisation Governance
• Imperial College London: Support for Commercialisation
• Canada Revenue Agency: SR&ED Tax Incentives
• Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada: ElevateIP
• Government of Canada: Budget 2025, Chapter 1
• University Affairs: NSERC and Axelys research commercialisation memorandum
• United States Code: Bayh-Dole Act provisions
• United States Congress: Public Law 119-83, Small Business Innovation and Economic Security Act
• European Commission: European Innovation Act proposal
• EUIPO: IP-Backed Finance Report 2026