R&D Partnerships, IP Pools, Venture Finance
Paul A. Masson has three decades of experience financing and managing emerging technology development through R&D partnerships that generate pools of shared intellectual property for co-title, exchange or buyout. Paul’s technology development experience includes computer hardware, software, internet connectivity, advanced materials, advanced manufacturing, food products, offshore wind, sustainable growing, sensors & controls and aerospace. His financing of R&D include direct experience sourcing private sector capital (angel and venture), federal sector sources (SBIR, STTR and program specific) and state economic development programs (innovation clusters). Paul co-designed partnership intellectual property allocations and pools working with both private sector and Federal legal counsel. The IP allocations included proprietary commercialization concurrent with open or gated source property titles. The majority of the IP designs included public distribution of selected technology guidelines adopted by standards setting bodies and regulatory authorities.
He has advised or designed R&D partnerships for corporate clients including Boeing, Carnegie Mellon/Robotics Engineering Consortia, Cisco, Collabnet, Honeywell, Shaklee, Textron, and Unisys. His state government clients include the technology investment or innovation cluster authorities for Connecticut (CCAT), Massachusetts (MTC), California (PIER) and south Kansas/GWP (BREG). His Federal government clients include the Department of Defense (5 programs), NASA (13 programs) and the Department of Transportation (2 programs). Paul continues his advisory work in the 2020’s as venture-startup judge for NASA iTech program, senior advisor to the US Department of Transportation/Office of Space Commercialization and on the advisory boards of early stage (pre-seed) startup companies.
Paul is co-founder and Managing Director if Strategic Alliances Resources Network, LLC (StarNet, LLC), a network of specialists that support the design, organization and launch of multi-party, R&D partnerships. Prior to co-founding StarNet, he was Director of Technology Commercialization at American Technology Initiative (AmTech), Director and Senior Consultant for Corporate Finance at SRI International (formerly Stanford Research Institute), investment/deal analyst at Babcock & Brown Trade Finance and project manager for three startup companies for which he co-raised venture capital ($22 million), developed products and negotiated strategic alliances.
Paul is a graduate of UPenn’s Wharton School, five year, dual-degree program receiving a BS Economics (Honors) and MBA Finance (Honors). While at UPenn, Paul was a multi-year, working member of the University’s Budget Management Committee. He is a recipient of multiple awards including UPenn’s Spoon Award, the NASA Distinguished Service Medal and a Wharton Public Policy Fellowship in the White House.