Steve Case’s Revolution backs Resolute Innovation to connect companies with R&D

It can be hard for big companies to keep tabs on all the research and innovation in their industry. The search for the best patents can be both cumbersome and disorganized.

That’s the idea behind Resolute Innovation, a startup that aims to connect companies with big ideas. New York-based Resolute is building what they’re calling “technology scouting software,” or a searchable R&D database. From food and beverage to cosmetics to pharmaceuticals to space, the concepts span many categories.

Resolute is raising $3.3 million in Series A funding, led by Revolution Ventures, the venture firm created by Tige Savage, David Golden and AOL co-founder Steve Case.

“The tech transfer process needs to be re-imagined,” said Case. He believes Resolute will “emerge as the leading platform in building this bridge between innovators with ideas and intellectual properties with businesses that can take those ideas and commercialize them and scale them.”

A lot of the research is provided by universities, including Columbia University (my alma mater), which is teaming up with Resolute. Other ideas stem from startups, hospitals, federal laboratories and research institutes.

Resolute makes money by selling subscriptions to its software. The team says it has thousands of customers and has been working with Fortune 500 companies and other large institutions.

Tige Savage said invested because Resolute “uses modern AI technology to make this stuff findable, searchable, indexable, organized.” He believes it fits his investment thesis of looking for “categories where billions of dollars being spent in old-fashioned ways.”

CEO Sebastian Metti says he plans to use the funding to expand their network of researchers. He also wants to continue the international expansion, targeting Asia, Europe, North America and Israel. The startup previously just had angel investors.