The company seeks to address what it views as a poor system in Europe for technology transfer.
An Italy-based venture builder, Elevo, has officially launched with the aim of accelerating the path to market of spinouts from universities and research centres.
The company seeks to partner with technology transfer offices globally, with a focus on Europe, to identify high-potential research projects and speed up their commercialisation. It aims to co-develop spinouts, help secure patents, licensing and funding. It takes equity in ventures that it co-creates.
“Europe produces world-class research but too often, breakthrough ideas stay trapped in labs. That’s why we created Elevo,” said Maurizio Martinoli, CEO, in a LinkedIn post. “Europe doesn’t lack research talent. It lacks effective structures to transform research into business with real impact.”
Martinoli was a business technology director at Johnson & Johnson MedTech Italia for nearly seven years before cofounding the company. Cofounders of Elevo are Davide Rota and Andrea Pagnin, who were part of the team at Generative Bionics, a robotics spinout from the Italian Institute of Technology.
Elevo shareholders include Avram Miller, the former cofounder of Intel’s corporate venturing arm, Intel Capital, and H-Farm, a pre-seed and seed investor in university spinouts.
