That's true. If we were to walk through that kind of translational space, I think the first barrier is the scientist who is trying to figure out what their product is. There are some questions about whether we actually have the tools we need to help a scientist innovator define the economic opportunity, the product, and then to develop a business that can actually succeed in raising capital. Even before you get to the traditional incubator stage, there is work that could be done there, and there are a number of places that are doing that work.
When you are a small start-up firm, it's partly about the C-suite kind of expertise. It's also partly making sure that you have strong connections to the research base that can help support your innovation and emerging tech area, and we have programs like IRAP at the NRC that actually provide funding and expertise to help those companies.
Then, as you go further downstream, there are some specific things that companies may be looking for. For example, it may be the case that there are common platforms or test beds that could be deployed to help them test some of these technologies, whether they're in sensors or in computing, infrastructure and other things, and looking at ways to support those. Again, they're not necessarily picking winners, but it's to give them a leg up to be able to test. Then as you get further downstream, you get to programs like SIF where people are at a scale where they're bringing in series-B investment and they want some supportive investment. We also have the BDC deep tech venture fund, which is another sort of venture capital vehicle that can provide support in that space.
There are a number of different pieces that already exist in the system. I think one of the things that we're looking at through the quantum strategy is how we tie them together, particularly in an emerging tech area like this, to make sure that our companies can connect all of those tools in an efficient way and that we have a line of sight on how they're progressing so we can help them along.