The Cambridge Evening news article on Genapta illustrates the Catch22 which the entrepreneur faces. In the article the Entrepreneurs says “Dr White said: “In recent years we have worked with customers and partners to commercialise our technology, but on the whole it is a challenging task for a small enterprise to protect, develop, make and support a new application and market. Using the resources of our new parent company all these issues will now be addressed.” and Bill Mathews of Cambridge Enterprise comments “Genapta is a good example of a start-up that got the essentials right. They combined a high level of relevant technical expertise with skilful husbanding of financial and human resources.
“They avoided the trap of diluting their holdings through raising too much equity capital but instead were frugal personally and developed the product through collaboration with potential customers.”
So there is the Catch22 – the not enough resources from the entrepreneur but they clung on to their equity. Perhaps if they had attracted the Cambridge Angels they might have had the confidence to go for the big time. As it was, Genapta has limped along and has now limped out of the Cambridge Cluster.
Genapta failed to meet their mission statement to be “the market leader in next generation optical diagnostic equipment in the Pharma and biotech industry”. There is no URL for Genapta so they are history with a few quid in their pockets but nothing for the Cambridge Cluster.
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