Here's a remarkable fact for you: since the 1970s the rate of company formation in the US has halved and it is broadly an indicator of the economic health of a country.
Nonetheless it remains true ~ since the Industrial Revolution ~ that as often as not the key inventions which underly our prosperity stem from individuals prior to their incorporation.
In the US it is still possible to procure sizeable investment prior to incorporation and I've attracted interest in the recent past to the tune of a half million dollars from an organisation that appears to prefer to review prospects on that basis.
In the UK, in contrast, whilst there is little interest in investing in an individual with an ideas nowadays, there was once in the shape of the 'British Technology Group' that financed the development of an idea of mine back in the 1980s. The evolution of this government initiative stemmed from the amalgamation of the NRDC and the NEB, the former having financed development of the hovercraft: which also sprang from individual experimentation.
What happened to the BTG is instructive, however. Assigned the task of commercial exploitation of inventions from both universities and individuals, it was best known for having backed the development of MRI scanners and monoclonal antibodies, of the sort that we practically depend on nowadays for surviving pandemics, for inst.
Inevitable then that it should have been privatised and like all else stemming from Thatcher's efforts to empower individuals... sold off to a US corporation.
So for those of you mulling the government grant I applied for (and which doubtless because of this blog and the transparency it provides you've yet to reply to)... you're off the hook.
P.S. had to list under aerospace manufacture as nothing related to the production of drones, tho' there would still be a classification for whalebone corset manufacturers.
