THE FIRST STEPS IN AN OPTOELECTRONIC STARTUP

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THE FIRST STEPS- IN AN OPTOELECTRONIC START-UP

• Dr. John F H Nicholls
• INSTITUTE OF PHOTONICS
• UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE
• PHOTONIC MATERIALS LTD.

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Outline

• My Background
• Background to Photonic Materials
• Photonic Materials - First Steps
• What have we learned
• Summarise
• Further Information

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My background

• PhD/Post Doc
• OMRC / CREOL - 1990-96
• Crystal Growth / Spectroscopy / Characterisation
• DPSSL / NLO / TSSL / GaN
• RD Manager
• Crystal Photonics Inc. - 1996 - 97
• Spin-out from CREOL

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The First Steps - Personal

• Commercially oriented?
• Leaving Academia?
• Do I really, really want to do this?
• Why - motivations
• Risk / Uncertainty
• Dedication / responsibility
• Family / friends
• Am I suited to running a company - what role?
• Whos in my team?
• Is it achievable - research!

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The First Steps - Feasibility

• Research your idea - markets not papers!
• Is there a market opportunity ?
• be honest with yourself
• good idea is not neccessarily a good
  opportunity
• who are your customers - have you spoken to them?
• what value does your product add to them?
• how large is the market - is the process
  profitable?
• do/will you own the IP?
• Would you invest?

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Photonic Materials - The story so far

• January 1998 - decided to go for it
• February Tour of LECs
• March Incubator Client of LDA
• May RSE/SE Opto Enterprise
  Fellowship
• July Awarded SMART (Scottish Office)
• September Major angel joined team
• October Secured VC investment
• November Total finance raised 400K
• Still own 65 of the company - no debt finance!
• January 1999 - Push the button in Lanarkshire!

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The First Steps - What have we learned?

• Get help - environment in Scotland excellent
• LECs, ILO, SE (opto), Connect, family, Acct?
• Incredibly hard work - but exciting!
• Takes much longer than expected - its costly!
• Need to learn new skills - identify limitations
• Essential to build a complimentary team
• Investment is out there STF, LECs, SFLGS,
  Angels
• must think like investor / banker
• choose investors for next rounds of finance
• It is possible to start-up an opto venture in
  Scotland

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Go for it - Scientists Engineers make great
entrepreneurs
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Further information

• Photonic Materials
• Dr John Nicholls
• Tel [phone]
• email john.nicholls_at_strath.ac.uk
• LDA - Lanarkshire Development Agency
• Andy McNab - Head of New Ventures
• 01698-745454
• email Andy.McNab_at_scotent.co.uk
• Incubator Unit
• David Hamilton
• 01236-702026