Deal flow is of critical importance to a VC. It is a slight oversimplification, but generally, the more ideas a VC is exposed to, the higher probability that the VC will find the next great idea.¹ While top tier VCs usually do not need to proactively reach out to startups (usually, the startups go to them), there is still value in reaching out to promising new startups.

One source for identifying promising new technologies is the patent offices of various universities. When technology is developed as research on a university campus, using university resources², the technology is listed on the website. It is true that these technologies are more relevant for early stage investors because they are ideas, not full blown companies; however, there is still value in understanding the emerging technologies that will shape the next generation of startups. For early stage investors and incubators, universities are a great source for finding innovative new technologies. Some of the most successful companies, such as Google and Facebook, were developed on university campuses. Other advantages of understanding these technologies include:

• licensing and other deals with existing portfolio companies
• for incubators, approaching the researcher to further develop and commercialize the technology

The easiest way to search for university research is through the Office of Technology Development (or some variant of that phrase) of a particular university. Below is a small list:

• Princeton University, Office of Research and Project Administration
• Harvard University, Office of Technology Development
• Stanford University, Office of Technology Licensing

1. Disclaimer: I have not run the regression analysis on this assertion, but that’s for another post [↩]
2. The exact terms are specific to each institution [↩]