Most of us don't know about thousands of R&D startups worldwide tackling wicked problems. They are the ones working on meaningful impacts, accelerating technological and social advancement.
This article is about how Workinlot works with Turkish R&D companies in our corporate accelerators, why they are as important as startups, and what is in it for corporations.
Turkish ecosystem — Problems create opportunities
Let's first set the scene in the Turkish ecosystem.
Turkish industry keeps increasing its industrial exports year after year. Most of the industrial exports consist of low-tech goods. This type of export leaves a slim profit line, making the whole economy extremely sensitive to energy/labor price fluctuations.
The Turkish government took responsibility for the urgent transformation needs of the industry. Technoparks were launched with collective efforts from universities and government initiatives, significantly incentivizing technology R&D.
Turkish technoparks play a pivotal role in the R&D startups and how they access government incentives.
As a result, we now have a large pool of startups working on R&D in a vast array of technology fields, funding themselves largely through incentives such as grants, tax exemptions, and more. (Turkish B2B Startup Grants and Incentives - Choosing the Right Ones)
But, something is missing from this picture.
There is ample motivation for R&D but almost none for the commercialization of knowledge. In other words, while the knowledge is being created, economic value add lags in comparison.
Technopark resident R&D startups, secure their payroll by government grants or work part-time as consultants on-demand.
The need for product commercialization becomes a “nice to have” and is understandably outside the comfort zone.
Why bother with VCs, angel investors, or international partnerships when you are already funded?
With the financial crisis, things started to take a different turn…
Strong devaluation of local currency, the glamour of the startup investments, and the recent success of Turkish tech unicorns and decacorns…Turkish R&D startups have become hot prospects for the international job market.
R&D Startups & Workinlot
Our experience with the R&D startups dates back to 2016.
During different corporate accelerator programs, we identified technologically advanced teams without scalable (ie investable) business models. Team of scientists and engineers, capable of running sophisticated projects like,
- Dark factory indoor navigation
- Manufacturing autonomous sea vehicles
- UAV image recognition projects for defense contractors (Converted to detect safe manufacturing in one customer case)
- New hardware solutions for batteries
- Space program contractors
- Renewable materials to guard EV car batteries
The level of talent led us to develop our unique approach while building a supply pool of R&D startups. (How PoCs Help Businesses Unlock Startup Potential)
Workinlot helps R&D startups build product/service strategies, by facilitating corporate engagement and helping launch scalable spinoffs/projects that address corporate innovation demands.
The success of the corporate - R&D startup engagement, reveals investment opportunities for the VCs and the CVCs. (Picking the right investor - CVCs)
Our expertise lies in working closely with corporate partners. That's why we design PoC projects between the corporate demand and the opportunity that R&D startups carry. (How PoCs Help Businesses Unlock Startup Potential)
That's how we validate problem-solution fit. The natural next step is to invest in the validated B2B solutions and bring further scale.
As of today, more than half of our corporate engagement solutions come from R&D startups.(PoC Data and Business Intelligence)
The technology developed by these companies are more stable compared to most startups, which is a key criterion in corporations' selection checklist. This is what the technical team structure of R&D companies brings to the table. Seasoned engineers, and scientists with a corporate or academic background.
Workinlot’s corporate accelerators, bundle technical capability with network and business development skills, making the engagement swifter and conclusive.
We have already started investing in PoC-validated startups. (Fast track to product 1.0 and product market fit via effective PoC projects)
How to benefit from Turkish R&D and B2B startups?
- You can learn about how R&D and other startups benefit your corporation (stage 1), then set up your corporate innovation strategy (stage 2)
- Launch your corporate accelerator in Turkey or take part in a multi-stakeholder Workinlot corporate accelerator (stage 3)
- Assess a PoC-validated R&D or B2B startup deal flow or launch your CVC OR corporate accelerator (stage 4)
At Workinlot we design process frameworks that enable companies to collaborate with technology firms and startups. To ensure these designs are optimally developed, we provide iterative project management support in partnership with the organization.
Through this collaborative and iterative knowledge transfer, we have helped establish corporate venture capital funds, open innovation platforms, and venture builder structures.
Let's connect and collaborate to identify and validate new opportunities.