Entrepreneur Briefs

I’ll Bring The Ideas, You Bring The Cash

What if you are an entrepreneur with a terrific prototype but without the cash to develop it further? Or maybe you are the head of R&D in a huge corporation and you need a few good ideas to jumpstart your division. In either case, the man you want is Ray Brill. His firm, Advanced Technology Innovations (ATI), has carved out a unique niche by matching the technological needs of large companies with the innovative solutions of small firms, universities, and non-profit organizations. Two or three times a year, ATI mails out what it calls a ‘Technology Innovation Program” proposal solicitation to a select group of small concerns. The solicitation describes the research questions being asked by more than 50 big corporations, whose identities remain anonymous. Entrepreneurs who think they have the right answers respond to ATI. Acting as matchmaker, ATI then introduces...