Ninth Component of the LCI: Funding

Funding

The ninth component of the LCI is Funding. This component continues its association with the HOW question of the LCI. Here the purpose is to guide the academic inventors and entrepreneurs to develop a detailed budget desired to realize the proposed invention in future (Aagaard et al., 2021).

The purpose is to calculate the required funding with respect to distinct resources in order to accomplish each key deliverable discussed in previous chapters. It is learned that along with tangible and intangible resources, desired for accomplishing key deliverables, skills and capacities of the team members are also required to be obtained with respect to each key deliverable. These team members can be students in universities where academic inventors are conducting their research or they may be hired for inventions to be carried by the entrepreneurs and product develops. In addition, visiting stakeholders, organizing meetings, conferences and workshops also require extensive planning and support of funding for the academic inventors and entrepreneurs.

The invention process passes through several stages and for each stage the expected outcome or a key deliverable varies. Usually, the process of investigation begins with R&D to first create knowledge and then this knowledge is converted to prototypes for testing the feasibility of the created knowledge. For example, 3M Company, which works on technologies for adhesives and abrasives, first develops any new material or membrane through extensive scientific knowledge. Then these materials and membranes are utilized to develop prototypes and check their feasibility for applications like protecting electronic displays, traffic signage and display graphics etc. Then engineering departments of these giant companies convert prototypes to finished products, packed and ready for the market (Ashley, 1995).

The academic inventors who are intending for inventions with more chances of commercialization need to look for distinct funding institutions, supporting distinct stages of the invention. For each of these stages, there exists separate funding possibilities that may begin with ideation, discovery, validation, customer creation and finally to company building (Tung & Chou, 2019).

This funding component of the LCI directs the academic inventors to plan for each resource required at different stages of invention and then associate the desired amount for each resource to realize a solution for the real-world problem. The following question is proposed by this component of the LCI to be answered by the academic inventors and entrepreneurs:

• 1.

  How much funding is desired to accomplish each key deliverable? (Check who can fund and why?).

The answer to the above question enables the academic inventors to explore for multiple options available for funding and look for valid justification for demanding different institutions for the desired funding. For example, at the earlier stage of ideation usually government institutions offer funding to develop the required scientific knowledge. For future stages of discovery and validation, along with grants from government institutions, some interested industries may also offer finding.

The methods of crowd funding, engaging friends and family and seeking assistance from incubators and accelerators are also in practice for raising funds (Muscio, Quaglione, & Vallanti, 2013). Once academic inventors and their team members successfully cross these stages, then appears larger chance of engaging angel investors and venture capitalists in the process of creating customers and building companies respectively. As LCI asks academic inventors and entrepreneurs to invent a solution with more potential of commercialization, it is suggested that they must keep different stages of invention in their research process and for each stage of invention they must devise the key deliverables. For facilitation in organizing the discussed information this chapter is now proposing the LCI Checklist – IX given in table 10.1. It is suggested to follow five items of the LCI Checklist – IX and seek guidance from the LCI Templates XIX and XX to calculate the desired funding for the invention. The five items in the LCI Checklist – IX are given in Table 1.