What We Do

Illinois Partners works with seed- and early-stage companies in complex or advanced technologies. We work with researchers and inventors to help commercialize their work based around hard sciences. Some of the services we provide include:

  • Interim management
  • Strategic planning
  • Financial planning and sourcing of capital
  • Licensing strategies and negotiations
  • Business development
  • Technology assessments
  • Lecturing on entrepreneurship
  • Coaching and mentoring

Examples of some of the technologies that we work with are:

  • Nanotechnology
  • MEMS
  • Software
  • Environmental sensors
  • Biosensors
  • Advanced materials
  • Renewable energy

Drawing on our experience in some of the world’s most successful technology companies such as IBM and Microsoft and a long history of commercializing technology from universities and federal laboratories, we sometimes work with more mature companies on sales, marketing or business development issues.

Some of the recent projects we have done include:

  • Founded and built a synthetic diamond company
  • Business development for a sensor company
  • Study of the nanotechnology industry in Illinois for a non-profit agency
  • Feasibility study of a powerful text-based search engine for a major research university
  • Early advisor for a printed electronics company. Negotiated their license with a major university.
  • Founding management team of a power electronics company with innovations in batteries, fuel cells and inverters. Negotiated their license with a major university
  • Marketing strategy for a developer of innovative computer aided design software
  • Assisted a life sciences company that has a patented process for transdermal analyte extraction with their fund raising
  • Incubated a chemical sensor company spun out of a major research university
  • Performed a due diligence project for a venture leasing firm
  • Served as interim sales executive for a developer of a parametric search engine
We have worked on projects based on technologies that originated at the following institutions:
  • The University of Chicago
  • The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
  • Argonne National Laboratory
  • Northwestern University
  • Illinois Institute of Technology
  • Northern Illinois University
  • University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • University of Pennsylvania
  • Oklahoma State University
  • University of Arizona