What we do
Six activities, one company, engineers from our group.
STI is not a fund, a patent firm or a research institute. It is a technology investor that combines capital, IP work and engineering from its own group – so that a technology can move from where it is stuck to where it earns.
01
Commercialisation
We build companies around validated technologies and research results: application focus, IP structure, first customers, team.
For inventors →02
Investment
Own-capital investments in technology companies, from seed to growth, alone or with co-investors.
For founders →03
Special situations
Rescue investment and purchases of technology companies and assets in difficulty – before, during or after a formal procedure.
Special situations →04
IP acquisition
Patents and portfolios with a credible application, including unused portfolios and patents at risk.
IP and patents →05
Licensing
Licences, licence-back structures and sales to industrial users that turn unused IP into income.
Licensing →06
EU project exploitation
Exploitation, IP and market-validation work in EU consortia, and planning for the continuity of results.
EU projects →The logic
Technical evidence, ownership and market demand together decide the route.
Europe produces excellent research and a great deal of intellectual property. Much of it does not reach the market: the application is unclear, industrial validation is missing, the rights are in the wrong hands, or the company behind it runs out of money at the wrong moment.
Because our six activities sit in one company, an opportunity that starts as a licence can become a new company, and a company in difficulty can become a licence – without changing partner.
The stages we work on
- Idea or research resultApplication focus and first evidence.
- Intellectual propertyOwnership, protection and freedom to operate.
- Validation and pilotTests with an industrial user.
- Industrial adoptionEngineering, scale-up and first customers.
- MarketRevenue, licence income or a sale.
Special situations can enter at any stage: a company in difficulty may have a validated pilot, or only a patent.
How we decide
What we look for
A technical advantage
Something that works measurably better, cheaper or cleaner – shown by data.
Rights that can be secured
Patents, software or know-how with a clean chain of title, or one that can be cleaned up.
An industrial use
A customer, a process or a regulation that makes the technology necessary, not just interesting.
A role for our engineers
We prefer situations where our own technical capacity changes the outcome.
Sectors we know well: industrial and process technologies, advanced materials, applied AI and data, embedded systems and IoT, measurement and instrumentation, energy and environment, food and bio-based technologies.
One conversation, whichever activity it fits.
You do not need to know which of our activities applies. Describe the situation; we will work out the structure.