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This invited convening of SBIR experienced players and other interested parties is specifically  NOT about how to get SBIR funding and support NOR even, except in passing, about effective useof SBIR resources to move a participating firm towards its business objectives. Here, quality SBIR participation is being used as an indicator of, and marker for, demonstrated technical competency. That's the 'given' that gets that firm an invitation. Only the best of the current crop of SBIR Awardees will be present here. Using thought-provoking working sessions -- active case studies, expert presentations and structured interviews, Talk Show format discussions and in-depth analyses of a range of related issues, -- and engaging key technology development practioners from industry and the private sector, the emphasis here is on the business implications and challenges implicit in completing the innovation process. The focus is on understanding how the considerable value created by a certain type of SBIR involved firm is currently being realized examining other - perhaps less high-profile - options whereby effectively to draw down some (additional) part of that created value and, importantly, setting these options and processes squarely in the context and realities of current business and economic conditions,Phase 3 is the backdrop against which a considerable part of SBIR related activity proceeds. in In the context of SBIR, with the companion term "commercialization", Phase 3 has become the catch-all phase used to establish the assumed criteria for 'SBIR Success'. Phase 3 is used collectively to describe that all-important pay-off on the SBIR investment -- the critical transition made by the individual SBIR Awardee from technical achievement to the promised business return and where the collective economic impact can be counted. In fact, of course, there is no SBIR Phase 3 in the sense that, unlike the legislatively required Phase I and Phase II, participating agencies do not - cannot - fund the business development activity that defines the Phase 3 effort. Some agencies provide Awardees access to various types of what are described as "commercialization support services" -- to Business Plan development, to presentation training, to technical exposure and some business introductions. In major part, however, for many SBIR Awardees Phase 3 remains that part of their SBIR participation during which they are left almost entirely to their own devices. The reality of business achievement and value realiization is often far more complex and of longer duration than the linear process implied in many SBIR discussions. Many technically skilled firms continue to strive - largely in vain - to achieve Phase 3. Tracking already-created value: By many of the commonly accepted markers of business and economic development, the extent of SBIR Phase 3 achievement has already been considerable. While their SBIR participation may not be causative, there is little argument that for many 'successful' SBIR Awardees, being program involved was often important at a critical point in the development of the firm. Of the 15,243 firms to date which have beeen SBIR Awardees. 1078 have raised venture financing. Totaling over $20B to date - more than the entire SBIR budget since 1983 - the evidence is clear that SBIR participation both imporves the likelihood of a firm raising Venture Capital AND, perhaps even more important, SBIR awardees achieve better valuations when raising external funding. A total of 547 SBIR-involved firms have achieved the status of being publicly traded. excluding firms which trade Over the Counter and/or are no longer traded due to M&A, as of March 2005, the Market Cap of this population of firms by itself exceeds $265B. Of the now 155 of these firms which are currently SBIR-active, the current total value is $64B Almost 650 SBIR Awardees have been the subject of M&A deals. Many of these transaction have involved Fortune 100 firms as buyers. An important number of these buyers have acquired several SBIR involved firms over time. The average price paid for SBIR-involved firms exceeds $400M - down from a couple of years ago but stll far higher, one suspects, than most would guess. The median price for SBIR M&A deals is around $65M. More than 46,000 patents have already issued to SBIR involved firms. That is ONE Patent about every THREE hours at a rate of issuance that is accelerating and far exceeds that all of the U.S. academic instiutions combined.Administrative notes:
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