Technology has changed. Technology scouting should too.
As companies increasingly look to start-ups, labs, and universities for early-stage technology, tech scouting has become a competitive differentiator.
However, most technology scouting is still done the way it was 20 years ago. Our IP Platform supplements traditional tech scouting approaches with data-driven analysis. We use millions of patents to identify emerging technologies and companies - before your competitors. We analyze how well a patent compliments your existing portfolio so you can spend more time evaluating high-impact technologies and building effective commercialization models.
Customer Story
Maintaining an edge in the aircraft market with 3D Printing
Tradespace enabled a leading military aircraft company to:
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Find and analyze 40,000 additive manufacturing technologies.
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Shorten its screening process from one month to two days.
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Identify 150 technologies it had previously overlooked.
The Context
The Aerospace and Defense (A&D) industry has become increasingly competitive due to consolidation, new business models, and the increased pace of technology development. Companies need to supplement internal R&D by working with innovative partners like universities, labs, and startups to access emerging technologies. As more companies realize this, competition for access to cutting-edge technology providers has become increasingly intense. To be successful, companies need to find technologies before their competitors and identify partners outside of traditional hubs like Silicon Valley. In doing so they need ways to quickly analyze thousands of technologies and companies to focus their effort on a small number of relevant opportunities.
The Problem
AirplaneCo is the leading provider of military aircraft to the US government. Although they have been the government’s supplier of choice for decades, their competitors have invested heavily in new technology to lower costs and increase production speed. To keep pace, AirplaneCo decided to invest in additive manufacturing to build cheaper, stronger airplane parts. However, AirplaneCo needed to figure out which additive manufacturing technologies aligned with their existing portfolio AND positioned them to grow in the future. Additionally, AirplaneCo needed visibility into which companies and labs were developing additive manufacturing technology. While they already received thousands of deals per month, they had no way to cut through the noise and figure out which technologies actually met their needs.
Companies need to find technologies before their competitors and identify partners outside of traditional hubs like Silicon Valley.
How Tradespace Helped
By using Tradespace to look at market trends and strategic fit, AirplaneCo improved its strategic upside by focusing on a subset of additive manufacturing technologies - machine control.
"AirplaneCo improved their strategic upside by focusing on a subset of additive manufacturing technologies."
They also realized they could also use Tradespace to quickly develop a list of all companies, universities, and labs with the right types of additive manufacturing technology. Once they had built a list of over 2,500 potential investment targets, they worked with the Tradespace team to develop a set of metrics to evaluate those targets and prioritize the highest-value opportunities. Using metrics like company size, revenue, location, technology strength, and actionability, Tradespace narrowed the list from 2,500 to 50 targets in less than a week.
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Reduced lead generation time from 1 month to 1 day.
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Analyzed 1000% more companies than traditional screening.
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Shortlisted 100 orgs not previously identified by AirplaneCo.
