Semantic Web R

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Semantic Web RD Fundingin the Private Sector

• ISWC 2006
• Dr. Mark Greaves
• Vulcan, Inc.
• markg_at_vulcan.com [phone]

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First, the obvious...
Public Sector Goals for Semweb RD Funding
Private Sector Goals for Semweb RD Funding

• New sources of national military and economic
  advantage
• Technology superiority / avoidance of
  technological surprise
• Intelligence analysis and public sector decision
  support
• Support of public institutions (Universities,
  Research Institutes, flagship industries)
• Education
• Basic science for national-scale issues
• Citizen interaction with Government
• Internatonal Leadership and Reputation
  opportunities
• Government-unique information problems

• Developing a profitable salable product
• Technology agnostic unless it offers a unique
  market advantage
• Favorable ratio of financial reward to market and
  development risk
• Identified, qualified customer base (could be an
  advertiser base)
• Credible ROI (Return on Investment) argument
• RD investments have payoffs in the short term
• RD risk is limited
• Sustainable advantage in a crowded marketplace
• Patents or hard-to-duplicate IP
• First mover advantage (eBay)

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Private Sector RD Funding Types

• What is cool from a business point of view is
  rarely equally cool from a technology point of
  view, and vice versa
• Traditional corporate internal RD to support an
  existing line of business
• If you are lucky enough to be in one of these
  (Boeing, IBM, Lucent, British Telecom, etc.) then
  you know the upsides and the downsides.
• Often supplemented with public sector RD
  contracts
• Very occasionally will partner with others for
  specialized RD
• Consulting / prototyping for other organizations
• Generally, a business of contacts and long sales
  cycles
• Examples TopQuadrant, ontoprise
• Venture capital
• Semantic web and web 2.0 companies are more
  difficult for traditional VC firms, because their
  capital requirements are often modest
• Content comes from users and web mining
• Software development is fairly minimal because of
  leveraging open software
• Advertiser revenue models dont require large
  sales staffs (eyeball aggregation)
• Exit strategy is a buyout, rather than IPO
• Need a VC that
• Can put a small amount of money to work and
  understands the technology (9 people and 1M
  users!)

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What Vulcan is Doing

• Vulcan is the private asset management company
  for Paul Allen, co-founder of Microsoft
• Development capabilities include philanthropy,
  externally contracted RD, internal technology
  development, venture capital, and private equity
• We occasionally issue targeted solicitations

Vulcan IP and technology
Vulcan skunk works projects