The Department of Homeland Security Science & Technology Directorate (DHS S&T) Office of University Programs (OUP) engaged FirstLink to help commercialize the University of Southern California (USC) CREATE Center of Excellence (COE) ARMOR technology.

First Link identified potential commercialization pathways and assessed the advantages and disadvantages for each pathway in regard to the subject invention

Outcome

The assessment identified three different commercialization pathways (licensing to a defense contractor, licensing to a security company and forming a start-up/spin-out). All were found to be viable options with various advantages and disadvantages. Since the technology required the expertise of the professors, a start-up/spin-out was decided upon.  The FirstLink report gave CREATE the confidence to spin out this capability to a start up and to seek investors for it, successfully securing $80,000 with more coming.