Steve Scott (Digital Science, UK) Since it launched in 2011, the Digital Science Catalyst Grant has awarded 13 groups with grants of up to £15,000 each to fund exciting innovations, and to take them from concept to prototype. The grant also comes with the opportunity to work with the Digital Science team to help refine, develop and promote the innovation. In this way we hope to lower barriers and foster greater creativity in research solutions for science. This presentation will outline the increasing need for grants such as Catalyst, and describe how we support founders with their early-stage ideas.

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The Catalyst Grant from
Digital Science
Steve Scott – Director of Portfolio Development

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Our mission is to make scientific research more
efficient so there’s more time for discovery.
We want to
empower scientific
researchers with the
best technology.

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Our portfolio
companies offer
support at every
stage of the
research cycle

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We serve researchers, funders,
institutions, publishers, governments,
laboratories and industry.
However, a few years ago we
spotted a funding and support gap at
the pre-seed stage…
We identify, invest in and support
innovative businesses and
technologies that makes
collaborative research practices
more open, efficient and effective.
We invest for long-term
benefit rather than short-term
returns.

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Finding appropriate funding for really early stage
ideas is hard.
At Digital Science we wanted to change that.
The Catalyst Grant plugs the gap for people trying
to get their ideas off the ground.

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Where does Catalyst fit into current models?
Catalyst
6-12 mths
No
Grant
Competitive
Idea Validation
Light touch
Light touch
Off-site

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Three clear goals:
1. To support early stage projects with beneficial impact on research
2. To give Digital Science media exposure
3. To build up future deal flow
Awarded twice a year (June and December)
Grant of up to £25k
Funding usually covers projects for 6-12 months

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We follow a strict review process:
Team (Does the team have the relevant technical/scientific
knowledge/management experience? (or a plan in place to get it)
Problem (What do they understand that others don’t? Does it help research
become more efficient, impacts the scientific community or processes within?)
Product/Solution (Why hasn’t someone else already done this? Is the product
vision convincing?)
Competitors (Is there a high chance for the product to be better than those of
competitors. How strong are those competitors? Who are they?)
Market (Is there a realistic description of the market size and its needs?)
Progress to date (How far along in their thinking/development are the applicants?
Have they shown enough initiative without funding?)
Fit with Digital Science (Is there a clear fit with Digital Science (either fits into
one of the silos with potential for partnerships and synergies or adds a new
subsector to the portfolio which we have not looked at before))

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Past winners (and losers) have gone on to great things
Writefull - http://writefullapp.com Amsterdam, The Netherlands
An AI software application that provides editing and authoring guidance to enhance
academic writing.
TetraScience - www.tetrascience.com Boston, USA
TetraScience is an IoT company, connecting existing lab instruments to a single online
dashboard where you can remotely monitor manage experiments and access data.
Nutonian - www.nutonian.com Boston, USA
Software which looks for patterns in vast data sets without human intervention. Since
Catalyst , raised $4m funding round from Atlas Ventures. Customers now include
Amazon, General Motors, US Air Force, Rolls Royce.
Ada Lovelace Day Resources Database www.findingada.com/stem-resources London,
UK An online resources database to empower women working in STEM.
Overleaf www.overleaf.com London, UK
Overleaf is an online LaTeX and Rich Text collaborative writing
and publishing tool. Enables direct submission and streamlined
editorial workflows for over 10,000 journals

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We respond with constructive feedback on all
applications that request it
This leads to many applicants re-applying, or in some
cases going on to become portfolio investments.
How many of your best ideas came from your first
idea?

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The Catalyst Grant does serve as an
onramp to investment (although that’s
not it’s sole aim).
We realised it is only the start of the
journey…
While Catalyst meets a need at the
ideation stage and early stage of
product development (MVP), there is a
large funding gap, which is extremely
difficult for startups to bridge

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Catalyst Grant positioning – accounting for innovation
KPIs
Key activities
Validation of
product idea
(R&D stage 1)
Product validation
(R&D stage 2)
Growth business Mature business
Business model
validation
(R&D stage 3)
R&D budget
Hypothesis-driven = achieve product/market fit
Funding released in stages
Product P&L
Implementation-driven = pursue growth and profitabilit
Long-term financial plan
• Product / solution
validation (hypothesis-driven
approach)
– market research
– proto-typing
– customer interviews
• Acquire initial users
• Create, test and iterate MVP
(build-measure-learn)
- split testing
- cohort analysis
- customer interviews
• Optimise conversion funnel
to improve conversion rates
and eliminate product
activation hurdles
• Develop monetisation
strategy
- B2B / B2C / B2B2C?
- CLTV > CPA
• Add additional features to
improve customer retention
and CLTVs
• Number of customers surveyed
(outcomes statistically
significant?)
• Indications of interest / financial
commitments secured
• Conversion funnel, e.g.
- unique visitors
- registrations
- downloads
- trials
- paying customers
• Product activation
• Customer retention
- repeat visits
- satisfaction ratings
• Referrals / virality
- viral coefficient
• Customer life time value
(CLTV > CPA)
• Marketing effectiveness
- CPC / CPR / CPA
- Channel
effectiveness
- Sales force
effectiveness
• Scale business model and
infrastructure
• Roll out product globally
and acquire market share
• Improve customer
referrals and pursue
upselling opportunities
• Revenue growth
• Gross margin
• Uplift from upselling
existing customers
(ARPU)
• Market share
• Improve operating
efficiency to improve
margins
• Pursue incremental
innovation to retain
customers and defend
market share
• Revenue growth
• Market share
• Profit margins
• Industry-specific
benchmarks
R&D budget Hypothesis-driven = achieve product/market fit
Funding released in stages
Product P&L
Implementation-driven = pursue growth and profitability
Long-term financial plan

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KPIs
Key activities
Validation of
product idea
(R&D stage 1)
Product validation
(R&D stage 2)
Growth business Mature business
Business model
validation
(R&D stage 3)
• Product / solution
validation (hypothesis-driven
approach)
– market research
– proto-typing
– customer interviews
/ smoke tests
• Acquire initial users
• Create, test and iterate MVP
(build-measure-learn)
- split testing
- cohort analysis
- customer interviews
• Optimise conversion funnel
to improve conversion rates
and eliminate product
activation hurdles
• Develop monetisation
strategy
- B2B / B2C / B2B2C?
- CLTV > CPA
• Add additional features to
improve customer retention
and CLTVs
• Number of customers surveyed
(outcomes statistically
significant?)
• Indications of interest / financial
commitments secured
• Conversion funnel, e.g.
- unique visitors
- registrations
- downloads
- trials
- paying customers
• Product activation
• Customer retention
- repeat visits
- satisfaction ratings
• Referrals / virality
- viral coefficient
• Customer life time value
(CLTV > CPA)
• Marketing effectiveness
- CPC / CPR / CPA
- Channel
effectiveness
- Sales force
effectiveness
• Scale business model and
infrastructure
• Roll out product globally
and acquire market share
• Improve customer
referrals and pursue
upselling opportunities
• Revenue growth
• Gross margin
• Uplift from upselling
existing customers
(ARPU)
• Market share
• Improve operating
efficiency to improve
margins
• Pursue incremental
innovation to retain
customers and defend
market share
• Revenue growth
• Market share
• Profit margins
• Industry-specific
benchmarks
Catalyst Grant Seed stage DSci funding
Catalyst Grant positioning

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Where does Catalyst fit into current models (pt2)
Catalyst I Catalyst II
6-12 mths Flexible
No No
Grant Convertible note
Competitive Selective
Idea Validation
Product/Biz
Validation
Light touch As needed
Light touch As needed
Off-site On-site

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Datasharing
Data
publication
Open Data
Data intensive
research
Research
evaluation
The Catalyst Grant is also
a great way to gauge
the Zeitgeist

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Thanks.
Any
questions?