Inveniam Group is made up of a diverse and multidisciplinary team that works together to bring breakthrough technologies to the market. Every month we will highlight one of our team members to get to know them and show who we are. For our 11th installment we feature our founding partner, Elena Canetti, to celebrate inspiring women in science and also 10 years since the founding of Inveniam.
What motivated you to start Inveniam Group?
The first one is a difficult question…because ten years have gone by since we founded Inveniam! …ten years ago, I was a consultant for the Centers of Research of Catalunya, advising the centers in the difficult mission of commercializing their intellectual property and improving their technology transfer methodologies. It became clear to me that there were huge untapped opportunities in the Catalonian and Spanish research ecosystem. With a strong background from YISSUM, the technology transfer company of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, I was able to see how my professional experience could be valuable to the local institutions. I worked for many years as licensing officer and afterwards as Vice-president of Scientific Collaborations at one of the most distinguished Israeli universities, crystallizing scientific results into licensing deals with huge corporations, and generating successful spinoffs that were then invested in by the well-developed Israeli venture capital ecosystem. The idea of bringing all this knowledge to other countries, motivated me to start my own personal business as a consultant for WIPO and some Latin American governments. However, it was the meeting with my partner Eric Suñol during one of my visits to Barcelona, that ignited the idea of creating a private company that could support the transfer of technologies from research institutions to industry, and of accelerating the wonderful local startups that had started to flourish in the Catalonian ecosystem. The combination of our different backgrounds and technological fields generated the idea of creating a company that would become a bridge between researchers, institutions, startups and large corporations, …what we called then the Open Innovation paradigm…Since then Inveniam has evolved to be what it is today… but our present day mission is still faithful to our initial vision.
What do you do here at Inveniam Group?
As a partner at Inveniam, my main concern is to coordinate my efforts with my partners and colleagues to make Inveniam excel in all its activities, creating value for customers by closing successful collaborations with companies and investors, supporting our clients to reach their objectives with high quality strategic advisory services and assisting them in the laborious road of obtaining private and public funding. As well as leading Inveniam, together with my colleagues, to become a reference for strategic advisory and funding services in the Life Sciences and Sustainability Sectors.
What are your fields of interest?
Reading about new trends in medical technologies, learning new methodologies and approaches for successful translation of scientific research to society, and opening my mind to everything that the digital world has brought us in the last decades and especially in the last two years since the pandemic…
What do you like to do in your spare time?
Mainly, being a mother, building Lego and playing football with my kids. And when the children allow it, watching a good movie or reading about philosophy and religion.
What advice would you give to a young woman thinking of making a career in tech transfer or impact innovation?
Developing a career in tech transfer or impact innovation can be a very challenging but, also a very rewarding path. For those young women interested in embarking in this journey, there are several paths, some of them start by learning a second degree in Technology Management, others by learning an MBA to complement their scientific knowledge with financial and business skills. But there is no doubt that immersing yourself in the innovation ecosystem is the best way to develop a career in tech transfer: starting points can be entering at junior positions of a university technology transfer office, joining a venture capital and corporate finance firms as junior analysts or by joining the team of technology accelerators, or government agencies promoting innovation.
How do you feel about the 10th anniversary of Inveniam?
Excited as a small child…cannot wait to celebrate the 10th anniversary with all our friends, colleagues, partners, and clients…a great achievement!
