Dunedin's Upstart Business Incubator is hosting an inaugural Upstart Den meeting next month to allow Otago-based inventors to present their products to would-be entrepreneurs - in private.
Upstart chief executive Norman Evans said he was frustrated by how many business opportunities were lost and start-up businesses failed unnecessarily because founders, technical experts and inventors insisted on trying to do everything themselves.
Issues included founders running the business long after the time was ripe to bring aboard a professional chief executive or skilled entrepreneur.
"Kiwis are prolific inventors, and yet it seems that less than 1% of patents are ever commercialised," Dr Evans said yesterday.
So far, seven inventors, with concepts including applications in the medical and waste management sectors, have signed up for the den meeting on March 4, which is not open to the public or media, while 10 expressions of interest have been lodged by entrepreneurs.
Upstart is working with Christchurch lawyers James and Wells and the Otago Polytechnic's Evolver Design Innovation Programme to seek opportunities to create new intellectual property around inventions which would "otherwise remain as a concept or be destined to sit dormant in an invention wasteland".
"This developed and proven intellectual property is then made available to entrepreneurs willing to build businesses around them so the entrepreneur, the inventor and the economy all win," Dr Evans said.
Upstart's general manager in entrepreneurship and marketing, Lisa McCarthy, said the entrepreneurs sought were not necessarily those with money to invest, but those with the skill and talent to commercialise products.
Both groups were expected to reside in Dunedin or Otago to boost job opportunities.
