First, Aligo Innovation ceased doing business in 2021 when Axelys was created. In Quebec, at present, there is only one commercialization company, which combines the staff from the three companies that existed before. My team at Aligo is now with Axelys. My excellent team has joined the staff of Axelys.
I can't talk about Axelys' business model, but I can talk about how we operated at Aligo. For each file or invention disclosure we received for commercialization, we had to establish a strategy and put in the necessary efforts, proactively, to find commercial partners. That involved a number of challenges, including the challenge of the lack of maturity in the universities' business and technology projects. That is a major obstacle.
At Aligo, we had an internal funding envelope that allowed us to do rapid prototyping and certain validations. When we talked to a business partner that was interested in a piece of IP, or if a start-up was having to persuade investors, we had the capacity to fund certain activities and proofs of concept in order to answer those questions rapidly.
You can't wait until you have a contract with the university and get the answer six months or a year later. This has to function in a business dynamic. That is what we did at Aligo, and we did it well. It is continuing at Axelys, but on a slightly different model.