Needs of Global Start-up companies (Deliverable 2) GlobalStart wp1 Studies Deliverable 2 Needs of Global Start-up Companies Table of contents p

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3. Internationalization
Evaluation of TTO support

Loan from Innovation Fund

R&D loan for Proteomics business area	Launch of new R&D program in 2005
Business concept Plan Objectives	3 business areas were planned to pursue in Company	Business plan was formulated, company existed still “on the paper” without own facilities. Joint project with university to get grant/loan from Estonian Innovation Fund	Management was hired Lab facilities were rented and equipped “normal” business was started	New business area was launched. Two directions of exploitation of R&D results: basis for proprietary product family basis for services provided by the Company	Restructuring of one business area to expand our technological capabilities from protein expression to protein production and protein purification areas.
Technology platform Production mode Market (industry, customer, competitors)	A lot of R&D work had been conducted in University lab	Licence agreement with university was signed to transfer IPR to company. Work was done in university labs	Extensive investments into equipment was made. Product family was tripled (based on similar technologies) Systematic work for finding new customers	Patent application was submitted Market survey was too limited due to limited financial resources	New technologies are licensed in and combined with in-house technologies. Growth from lab scale to industrial scale Market survey has to be sufficient to validate business plan.
Finance Source and Use of capital	2500 EUR invested by founders to meet minimal capital criteria	First sales to the customer helped to pay for salary expenses and lab supplies	Investments were financed by loan (200.000 EUR), everyday expenses were covered by sales.	Appr 150.000 EUR loan from Enterprise Estonia was used mainly for R&D as equipment basis was already existent before.	Grants combined with equity
People Management, Other employees	No personnel hired, people worked in University	First lab technicians were hired	Very soon the staff grew to 12 people	New R&D group was formed, later 2 persons were hired to S&M department	Hiring new scientists.
Partners/ Network Purpose Advantages Mode of cooperation	First customer was willing to start buying services		Collabotation agreements with universities, Estonian Biocenter etc. (More like declarations)	Started to find partners in other European countries	Try to close pre-agreements with users of the technology/products in early stage.

3. Internationalization

Know-how/technology

The company invested heavily in R&D work at the University lab in Tartu. People involved had strong technology know-how in the field. Company has limited international cooperation in R&D.

Quattromed has an experience with a number of Finnish and Swedish clients in conducting research experiments. Presently joint projects running with Canadians, Italians and Germans.
Market

The company clients are Estonian clinics, the market share is approximately 60-70%. The costs of expanding abroad are too high in the relation to the size of the company. In addition there is a strong competition in the field.

Fermentas, a Lithuanian company became the first retailer of Quattromed products.
Establishing contacts abroad the company’s managers experience difficulties in adjusting to regional business cultures and defining target customer group. It would have been useful for the company to have more information on potential clients than just the information from web pages. The product of the company is highly customized, thus the company usually interested in establishing close relations with its clients. It is rather difficult to initiate this kind of relation outside well-known home market. Even taking part in relevant fairs does not always bring expected effect.
Finance

Quattromed is the only biotechnology company in Estonia, the shares of which have been subject to trade sale. In 2002, FIT Biotech Plc, a Finnish biotech company that since 2001 also runs R&D facilities in Estonia, acquired 22.4 % of the shares of company. FIT Biotech also has the option to obtain the remaining shares of

Quattromed, up to 100 %, until 2006.

TTO support

Limited support of TTO with respect to the internationalization process, as the company customers are mostly Estonians.

Evaluation of TTO support

The university based TTO support was generally quite useful. University’s Institute of Technology is especially valuable; its functions need to be developed to build stronger connections between university faculties and businesses. The Enterprise Estonia (business support agency) support has unfortunately limited value-added for the company like Quattromed. First of all, most of Enterprise Estonia’s programs are oriented at larger companies with stable market and stable turnover. The companies that do not spend much on marketing and cannot ensure high ratio of self-financing have almost no suitable programs to apply for. Secondly, Enterprise Estonia has a generalist consulting profile and does not have competent employees to provide specific information on biotechnology industry in Europe.

ESTLA

Spin-off from the University of Tartu

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