Launching the venture
How do inventions grab traction in the marketplace? Consider a few case studies.
Twelve years ago, four Clemson faculty members got together and decided to create some new materials. They didn’t set out to start a business, hire a work force, or establish a brand.
“We thought about the obesity problem,” Muth says. “They have pedometers to track steps. What if we had something to track bites?”
The team’s patented technology builds a background model that adapts to changing light and weather conditions and tracks vehicles over time by comparing their appearance in successive frames.
Over the past two decades, more than seventeen spin-off companies have licensed Clemson University technologies, and many of these companies have been established near Clemson.
