Back to News page

Revolution Leads Series A Investment in Technology Scouting Software, Resolute Innovation

Connects Fortune 500 companies with startups, technology transfer offices, and research organizations

Washington, D.C. and New York, NY – September 18, 2017 – Resolute Innovation announced a $3.3 million Series A investment led by Revolution Ventures, the early-stage venture capital fund co-founded by Steve Case, Tige Savage, and David Golden. Resolute, founded by M. Sebastian Metti and Matthew Doherty in 2015, is a technology matchmaking and R&D intelligence platform designed to accelerate the commercialization of early-stage technology.

Since launch, the company has contributed significantly to the commercialization of new technologies, successfully matching dozens of emerging technologies with corporate partners. Some of these innovations include promising cures for major diseases, crop protection tools to enhance food production, and human support systems for advanced space exploration.

New technology is being invented at the highest rate ever, with the number of annual patent applications set to double nearly every decade. Many of these inventions are developed by universities, startups, federal laboratories, hospitals, and other research organizations that need industry partnerships to reach commercialization. The ever-growing volume of new technology each year has made the process of technology scouting, partnering, and commercialization highly inefficient.

Leading corporations have widely adopted open innovation and technology scouting practices to seek external R&D and commercialization rights for new technologies. Despite the importance of innovation, these practices remain almost exclusively people-driven and involve little or no technology. Resolute’s platform bridges this gap by providing the tools needed to actively research and source emerging technologies at a scale that keeps pace with the increasing rate of new technology development each year. For the technology owner, Resolute provides significantly greater access to an enormous, centralized network of potential industry partners and buyers.

“The rate of invention is at an all-time high, and people need new tools to manage this level of scale,” said M. Sebastian Metti, Co-founder and CEO of Resolute. “Looking towards the future, we anticipate more enabling technologies and platforms to further fuel the acceleration of invention, which will continue to increase the challenge of researching and sourcing emerging technology. Just as the advent of the semiconductor led to a burst in the rate of invention, we will see even more invention as people gain access to technologies such as 3D printing, genome editing, artificial intelligence, and more. For companies that want to keep up with innovation, Resolute offers a comprehensive solution.”

Jonathan Campbell, who is Head of Technology Scouting at a top agrochemical company, shares the same perspective on the challenge of covering the innovation landscape, adding that "Resolute helps us access the technology transfer offices beyond the most visible, most well-known names.”

“Fortune 500 and other large companies rely heavily on the research and inventions of others to remain innovative and competitive,” said Tige Savage, Co-founder and Managing Partner of Revolution Ventures. “Resolute’s marketplace is helping to democratize technology innovation by connecting innovators from all regions, not just in the major technology hubs, to those in search of innovation.”

Weiyong Sun uses Resolute’s platform and is currently Senior Director of External Scientific Affairs at a major healthcare company; he emphasizes the growing issue with emerging technology, pointing out that "researchers are making great discoveries everywhere and companies need tools like Resolute to manage the abundance of innovation happening outside their radar.”

Since launching two years ago, Resolute has already seen positive results, with new technology more readily reaching commercialization. By working with leading corporations across dozens of industries and hundreds of research areas, Resolute customers have accelerated the discovery and commercialization of new technology sourced from external partners.

“Resolute has been working with our office to help streamline the process of matching our potentially life-saving or life-improving scientific inventions with the corporate or venture partners who can bring them to market,” says Orin Herskowitz, Senior Vice President of Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer at Columbia University.  “Sebastian, Matt, and the Resolute team have collaborated with us to understand our pain points and develop intuitive and automated tools to address our current and future needs. We are excited to put their system into practice in the upcoming months.”

About Resolute Innovation

Resolute Innovation connects startups, universities, and research institutes with corporate partners. Through a technology match-making and R&D intelligence platform, Resolute makes emerging technology more accessible to R&D and commercial partners. Resolute customers are companies with R&D spanning all industries, including chemicals, food & beverage, pharmaceuticals, electronics, spaceflight, and much more.

About Revolution Ventures

Revolution Ventures is Revolution’s institutionally-backed, early-stage fund investing in companies around the country that are attacking large, multi-billion-dollar categories. The team works with companies that meet their disciplined criteria and form true partnerships with founders to help them build market-leading businesses. Revolution Ventures is headquartered in Washington, D.C. and part of Revolution’s family of funds, including Revolution Growth and the Rise of the Rest Seed Fund. Visit us online at revolution.com or @Revolution.