THE LEADING MARKETPLACE FOR ACADEMIC EXPERTISE

Our mission is to accelerate collaboration between industry and academia. Much of our startup experience in Silicon Valley was driven by informal relationships with researchers at Stanford, based on personal connections and ad-hoc meetings, mainly at the School of Engineering. We found that even on campus there was limited interaction between departments and schools. We were in the founding officers team of BASES, the Business Association of Stanford Engineering Students, which started to improve interaction between engineering students and graduate students at other schools. As part of BASES we started INTERACT, an event series between e.g. Computer Science and the Stanford GSB, from which many startups were founded in the nineties and aughts.

We are highly confident that today's collaboration between academia and business can be greatly improved. Enhancing interaction in terms of discovery, the legal framework, financial transactions, and overall trust between the parties involved. Especially outside of Silicon Valley the informal networks between experienced entrepreneurs, angels, and lawyers are nascent. We see an order of magnitude opportunity to unlock deep research IP in Europe and Asia. All across Europe we see a wealth of untapped academic expertise, despite many attempts by the EU to kick-start a European version of the Valley.

Unicircles was founded in Europe, and intends to function as a digital "silk road" between Asia, Europe and the Americas. Our founding team includes several long time entrepreneurs from the San Francisco Bay Area - one of which working closely with the angel investor who coined the term Silicon Valley (Ralph Vaerst). Building on our combined track record spanning 5 decades and three continents, we aimed to capture and automate the key success factors for effective research collaboration. After our founding in 2012 we grew Unicircles.com from a social network for academia into today's global marketplace, incorporating the “KSFs” linked to research discovery, networking, standardized legal frameworks, and trusted financial transactions.

The Unicircles mission is to grow with a strong sense of purpose. We believe that there are enormous societal gains to be made by enabling more rational discourse between business and academia, crossing both national and political boundaries. Especially in the current era of disruption of industry supply chains, natural ecosystems, social safety nets, and the global climate. We believe it is paramount that we improve the quality and frequency of communication across the global research and entrepreneurial hubs.

Unicircles has grown into a global platform for applied research, combining a marketplace for expertise and funding in one place. The platform spans research consulting, business innovation advisory, IP transactions, and pre-seed / angel funding. We aim to radically improve communication across innovation hubs and in doing so increase purpose driven innovation around the globe. Our members leverage the network by extending the interaction during conferences and events to day-to-day collaboration. Especially in the post COVID world we believe that most innovators cannot afford to miss this more frequent interaction.

We hope that you will support our dual mission for more rational discourse and accelerated, purpose driven innovation. Please sign up now to take advantage of our time limited offer for a free annual license. We continue to enhance the marketplace experience and always appreciate your feedback. If you would like to join as a Unicircles ambassador in return for equity please let us know after the quick sign up process.

Sincere regards,
The Unicircles founding team