Unlocking Hidden Innovation
The hosts:
Andrea Siciliani, Techenergy Ventures
Leonardo Massa, MITO Technology
What is this Ripple about?
Universities and corporate R&D labs are sitting on a goldmine of innovation that never reaches the market, buried under slow IP deals, misaligned incentives, and ecosystems that don't talk to each other. The question isn't whether the innovation is there. It is. The question is: can we build the fast-paced ecosystem infrastructure to unlock it before it gets exploited elsewhere, or worse, not at all?
Why this topic timely or urgent in 2026
Research commercialization has become a strategic priority across Europe. In 2025, 76 university spin-outs crossed $1B valuations, VCs deployed over €8B into European deep tech, and corporates like Bosch and Tenova began experimenting with structured models to spin out IP from their R&D labs. The signal is clear: both sides of Europe's innovation base, academic and industrial, are sitting on hidden assets that the market is ready to back. Yet these assets remain largely locked. University researchers get stuck in months-long equity negotiations.
Corporate R&D teams build transformative technologies that never leave the building because internal incentives don't reward commercialization. The barriers differ, slow TTOs on one side, risk aversion and corporate politics on the other, but the result is the same: world-class innovation generating no economic value. A few ecosystems have begun to crack the code. Some TTOs have slashed deal timelines. Some corporates have built structured spin-out programs. But these remain exceptions, not the norm. This roundtable brings together corporate founders and investors working across both university and corporate spin-outs to share what actually works, and to ask: what would it take to build a fast, systematic environment at the European level that turns our innovation powerhouse into economic value?
Key questions or challenges being explored
University spin-outs vs. corporate spin-outs: What are the common patterns, and can a shared playbook accelerate both?
Best practices that actually work: What specific practices make the difference, and why haven't they spread?
From hidden to valued: university and corporate spin-outs both represent innovation that exists but does not systematically create economic returns. What incentive structures, funding models, and ecosystem connections would make it faster and easier to turn these hidden assets into companies that generate real value?
The main tension or debate at the heart of this discussion
The core debate is whether the bigger unlock comes from fixing each side separately (faster TTOs, better corporate spin-out programs) or from connecting them into one ecosystem where research meets market demand from day one.
Who would get the most value from attending this Ripple?
Deep tech investors backing university or corporate spin-outs. Corporate innovation leads to exploring how to commercialize internal R&D. University tech transfer officers benchmark best practices. Founders who have spun out from a lab or a corporate.