ABSTRACT
The commercialisation of nanotechnology-the transition from research to an economically viable product-is particularly vulne-rable to the commercialisation “Valley of Death” compared with other technologies for reasons relating to product focus, market
engagement, scale-up and product development. For these reasons, we believe the valley of death represents more than just a funding gap for nanotechnology commercialisation. In terms of funding, the lack of an absolute measure and market acceptable signal of an increase in value in the technology upon the achievement of an impartial product development milestone represents a major challenge in funding nanotechnology ventures. We review the literature on the commercialisation of nanotechnology to summarise the nanotech-specific risks and success factors, and identify gaps in the literature for nanotechnology commercialisation ventures to develop a nanotechnology-enabled whole product. We also extend the literature by proposing an end-to-end model for the commercialisation of nanotechnology to traverse the valley of death. 12.1 IntroductionAlong the path to commercialisation, nanotechnology’s biggest liability is its novelty. Inventions often attract attention because of their ingenuity, but a product must also be useful and compelling [23].In this chapter, we argue that the successful commercialisation of nanotechnology needs more than the norm to cross the “Valley of Death”. Before elaborating and justifying our assertion, first we explain what, in this chapter, we mean by nanotechnology, commercialisation, success and the valley of death.The scope of nanotechnology encompassed by this chapter includes all forms and applications of nanotechnology-particles, materials, devices or other structures with at least one dimension in the nanoscale range-apart from the subset of nanotechnology which has a medical application.Commercialisation is the act and process of managing the transition of research to a market application [9]. Commercia-lisation success is deemed to have been achieved if an end-product which is or comprises the nanotechnology achieves sustained product sales and profits [28].The valley of death is the gap that exists between research (with all of its uncertainties) and product development (with its focus on economic returns) [10]. Regardless of the industry or the origin of the research (for simplicity in this chapter we
contextualise it from a university environment), technology com-mercialisation must endure and traverse the valley of death if it is to become a successful product.The objective of this chapter is to summarise the literature on the risks and success factors for nanotechnology commercia-lisation, identify the gaps and issues, and propose a framework for the critical success factors to develop a nanotechnology-enabled whole product. To begin with, it is worth understanding the various characteristics and perspectives on the valley of death in the innovation and technology management literature. 12.1.1 The Valley of DeathThe valley of death is the transition from research activities to product development (Fig. 12.1). It is where ideas and inventions that arise from research activities must undergo a preliminary assessment of their technical feasibility, market demand and commercial case [32] and a decision made whether to proceed or terminate product development [27]. Often the decision is made to proceed, but the product fails for intrinsic or extrinsic reasons. The valley of death is so called because it is a graveyard for many technologies.On the upstream side of the valley of death is research which is inherently uncertain and downstream is the more regimented process of product development characterised by deliverables, deadlines, budgets and their attainment against plan. Com-mercialisation is about the translation-from science to business-crossing these two distinct paradigms.The valley of death is commonly understood to be attributed solely to a lack of funding. If more funding was available, the argument goes, then the technology would have undoubtedly been developed into a robust product with a sustainable competitive advantage, attained dominant market share, produced in sufficient volumes at a low cost of goods to maximise profit margins. If that were all true and the commercial case was so strong and well articulated, then it would be reasonable to assume that the commercialisation facilitator would be able to attract the necessary additional capital. Hence, there is a view that the lack of funding in the valley of death is actually a symptom of other problems and is not the root cause [9].
