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ETH Zürich

Gunter Festel was from 2009 to 2015 part-time faculty member within the department “Management, Technology, and Economics”.
In this function, he built up the Start-Up Research Group within the technology and innovation management chair of Prof. Dr. Roman Boutellier, performing academic research in the following areas (see below for details): 1) strategic, operational and financial aspects of start-ups/spin-offs, 2) the Founding Angels concept to foster the foundation of start-ups/spin-offs and 3) alternative financing strategies to realise innovations.
The sectoral focus was on the chemical, pharmaceutical, biotech, medical devices and energy industries, and the technological focus on biotechnology, nanotechnology and energy technologies.
Due to the retirement of Prof. Dr. Roman Boutellier at the end of 2015, the Start-Up Research Group was transferred to the University of Basel within the financial management chair of Prof. Pascal Gantenbein.

1) New Ventures and Technology Transfer
As a rule, a gap exists between academic research and the commercialisation of the re-search results, which, in innovation processes, represents a serious barrier. Start-ups/spin-offs can bridge this gap as they can enable the fast transfer of research results into products due to their flexibility and efficiency. As a catalyst for the commercial success of new innova-tive technologies, they are of more and more importance for high-tech areas. Furthermore, examples from different industries show that established companies can increase their inno-vation by spinning-off selected businesses. Within the research work the mechanisms and dynamics of academic and corporate start-ups/spin-offs are investigated to understand suc-cess factors and best practice approaches.

2) Founding Angels Concept
Business Angels and Venture Capital companies are normally focused on already founded companies, so they are unable to fill the gap between academic research and market suc-cess should insufficient start-ups be founded. Founding Angels stand for an innovative busi-ness model which could help as a driving force for the foundation of new start-up companies. Scientists are supported financially and operationally from the generation of business ideas to the building up of start-ups. This business model is already being successfully implemented in the UK and the US, mostly in the area of nanotechnology, and meanwhile there are also some biotechnology examples in Germany and Switzerland. These examples are analysed to understand and further develop the Founding Angels business model (see www.founding-angels.com for more information).

3) Financing of Innovation
More and more companies have insufficient capital for innovations and have to realise that they need to find other ways of financing to strengthen innovation. There are some alternative financial sources for companies like mezzanine financing, project financing and private equity financing but practical aspects are not sufficiently understood and, therefore, not used by most companies. The research work covers a broad range of examples like the financing of pharmaceutical development projects by specialised investment funds, the realisation of buy-and-build strategies of private equity owned companies or alternative financing models of industrial infrastructures in industrial parks in the chemical and lifescience industry.