Outlook 2022: Innovation Funding Urgency Grows

Industry and government resources have been trying and waning for over the past three decades to turn the U.S. into a powerhouse of clean-energy and high technology exports. Many of us believe that the root cause problem is a frustrating and persistent shortcoming of the American economy. We could call it the “Transition to Manufacturing Gap.” When new technologies are in the basic research stage and decades away from reaching a market, the U.S. and the investment community generously supports them. However, when those same technologies are on the verge of commercialization and being prepared for mass production, support has been shown to quickly disappear. Very few financial institutions or venture capitalists will write their innovators a loan, and no manufacturers will help work out the final details in their production line.