Deeptech
Secure an industrial pilot while preserving future market options
An advanced materials venture considered a pilot with an industrial partner, balancing access to real operating conditions against know-how exposure and future application rights.
01 / The context
The situation.
An advanced materials company needed an industrial environment to validate a specialised coating. A prospective partner offered facilities, process expertise and potential purchasing volume. It also requested broad access to improvements and preferential rights beyond the initial application.
Access to an industrial setting was central to the next stage of development. The proposed relationship combined a technical opportunity with a commercial negotiation: the partner that could help clarify the coating’s relevance also sought rights capable of shaping its future use.
02 / The challenge
The decision that matters.
The pilot could produce evidence the venture could not obtain alone, yet its formulation expertise might be useful across several markets. Excessively narrow collaboration could weaken the partner’s incentive to invest. Broad commitments could restrict later partnerships, complicate financing discussions and leave the venture dependent on one route to market.
The partner’s contribution needed a credible commercial rationale, while the venture needed to avoid exchanging broader opportunities for access defined by the immediate pilot. Formulation expertise, resulting evidence and rights in improvements had different roles. Treating them as one contribution could obscure the significance of a concession.
03 / The strategic perspective
Match each commitment to the opportunity it supports.
An industrial pilot sits between a scientific proposition and a commercial relationship. It can make a technology more credible, but creates dependence on another organisation’s facilities, expertise and willingness to participate. Both parties need the arrangement to be worth sustaining.
The strategic distinction is between commitments justified by the immediate work and those determining later opportunities. Future applications vary in credibility and value, so preserving options requires judgement rather than a blanket refusal to share. The purpose is a proportionate exchange connecting industrial progress with the venture’s longer-term position.
04 / DELSOL Group’s contribution
How DELSOL Group contributed.
Connect the pilot with venture ambition
DELSOL Group helped leadership distinguish what the pilot needed to establish from what a wider commercial relationship might require, connecting immediate validation priorities with the company’s credible future opportunities. A pilot can answer a specific industrial question without settling every aspect of a later relationship. Validation needs and longer-term participation rights therefore had to be considered in relation to their respective commercial purposes.
Give knowledge contributions clear boundaries
Support addressed existing know-how, project improvements, data use and disclosure expectations, helping the partners understand the access needed for productive work and the value each expected from participation. Productive collaboration requires enough knowledge to make the work useful. It also requires clarity about access for the pilot and continuing use elsewhere, particularly where existing formulation expertise supports ambitions beyond the initial application.
Make future commitments proportionate
DELSOL Group supported discussion of application scope, exclusivity and subsequent development rights in relation to partner investment, so the venture could weigh commercial concessions against the industrial opportunity on offer. The balance concerned each commitment and the contribution it supported. Preserving every imaginable option could make participation unattractive; conceding broadly could make future development unnecessarily dependent on one partner.
05 / Intended value
The business objective.
The objective was to support meaningful industrial learning and a coherent next commercial step through a pilot relationship with clearer expectations for each contribution. The venture sought to preserve usable know-how and credible market options while distinguishing commercially relevant future applications from more speculative possibilities.
The intended value was a relationship serving the immediate validation need while leaving a reasoned basis for subsequent choices. The ambition was to recognise the partner’s contribution and preserve essential knowledge without allowing the pilot to determine the venture’s route across all future markets.