Despite intense fundamental research, only few biological inspirations have so far made it to real technical solutions. The reason is that the path from an understanding of nature to a successful product has many potential ´show stoppers´. Within the ERC Proof of Concept project "SWITCH2MARKET", we were able to tackle the essential issues that remained to be clarified before launching a commercialization activity on our bioinspired micro-patterned adhesives (Gecomer-Technology), meaning, that all work-packages specified in the proposal were successfully executed. Namely, a competitive analysis has been performed, showing a number of different gripping technologies like vacuum gripper, 2-finger gripper, electrostatic chucks, magnet gripper, or Bernoulli gripper. On the other hand, our Gecomer-Technology features a combination of unique selling points (USPs) and thus enables the use in various markets. For instance our technology has great potential for handling purposes in "industry 4.0", as our bioinspired, micropatterned adhesive consists of soft elastomeric materials. Especially when used with collaborative robots, our Gecomer-Technology shows socioeconomic impact, as our gripper are safe for the employees, noise free, allowing for improved occupational health, and have much less energy consumption compared to existing technologies like vacuum gripping. Extensive testing of our technology shows reliable pick and place for more than 1 million cycles. Based on an IPR search in conjunction with a freedom to operate analysis (FTO), we were able to develop a well-founded IPR strategy. Using the results of i) the competitive analysis, ii) the market analysis iii) the performance tests and iv) the FTO analysis and IPR search, we were able to successfully write a detailed business plan for potential investors in order to establishing a start-up company named INNOCISE. Furthermore, thanks to the funding by the European Research Council, we were able to also design a company logo, built a webpage and develop a corporate design.
