Center for Innovation · Estonia
You built it. We launch it. You earn from it — for life.
CDI is a Center for Innovation based in Estonia. We take validated technologies — a working MVP or a working prototype — and commit to putting them in front of paying customers within 12 months, at our cost and our risk.
No equity. No fees. No cost to you. We reply within 10 business days.
Two outcomes.
Both written down upfront.
You grant CDI an exclusive licence to commercialise your technology for 12 months. What happens next depends on one thing only: whether we reach the market.
We take ownership.
You take royalties, forever.
- 5–7% of all revenue generated by your technology — direct sales, sublicensing, spin-offs and derivatives included.
- Paid quarterly, for as long as the technology earns.
- Inheritable. Royalties pass to your heirs through a Royalty Trust.
- Full ownership of the technology transfers to CDI.
Optional tiered model: 10% for the first three years, 5% ongoing. Which model applies is agreed before you sign.
You get your technology back.
- All ownership rights return to you, automatically, at the end of the term.
- You keep everything you came in with, plus everything we learned about the market.
- You owe CDI nothing.
- CDI retains ownership of the improvements, derivatives and IP it created during the period.
This is the part most people ask about twice, so we put it in writing: the licence is temporary, and failure on our side costs you the 12 months of exclusivity — nothing else. Read the terms.
From submission
to your first royalty
Five stages. The first two cost you nothing and commit you to nothing.
-
01
You submit
A concept summary and proof it works. No NDA needed at this point — send only what you're comfortable sending, and we'll ask for the rest if we go further. You hear back within 10 business days either way.
-
02
We evaluate — four gates
All four have to pass. A strong result in one doesn't compensate for a weak one in another.
- Technical. Does it do what it claims? We operate it ourselves and assess what it takes to make it production-grade.
- Market. Demand, TAM/SAM/SOM, competition and pricing. We need a reachable buyer within 12 months, not a large market in theory.
- IP & legal. Patents, trademarks, licensing rights, third-party and open-source obligations. We need a clean chain of rights before we invest.
- Pilot. Can we name the customers who would run the first pilot? If we can't name them, the 12 months won't be enough.
-
03
We sign the licence
An exclusive commercialisation licence for 12 months. No equity, no fees, no transfer of ownership at this point — that only happens if we launch. The clock starts here.
-
04
We build and sell it
This is where the 12 months and CDI's money actually go.
- Engineering. An MVP proves an idea; a product survives customers. Hardening, security, GDPR, deployment, monitoring, documentation.
- Legal & IP. Licensing structure, customer contracts, sector compliance, IP protection, and the royalty mechanics.
- Brand & market. Naming, positioning against the real alternatives, the sales narrative and the materials.
- Selling. Direct outreach to the customers named at evaluation, pilot deployment, and the first commercial contract.
-
05
You get paid, quarterly
Launch is the contractual milestone, not the end of the work — your royalties depend on revenue, so we keep maintaining, iterating and expanding distribution. Statements go out each quarter, and payments continue through a Royalty Trust to your heirs.
A launch means entry into the market, not profitability: the product available to paying customers, or at least one signed pilot contract. The exact definition is in the contract.
We only take technologies
that already work
CDI carries the entire cost of commercialisation. That only makes sense if the technology is already proven to function. This filter is deliberate.
We evaluate
- Software with a fully working MVP — something a real user can operate end to end.
- Hardware or hybrid with a working proof-of-concept prototype — built, not rendered.
- Solo inventors, research teams and small dev teams alike.
- Any sector: AI, IoT, SaaS, GreenTech, productivity, Industry 4.0.
- Any IP status — filed, granted, pending or none. Patents help but aren’t required.
We don’t evaluate
- Ideas, concepts or specifications without a build.
- Slide decks and mockups with nothing running behind them.
- Technologies already exclusively licensed to someone else.
- Projects where you don’t hold the rights, or can’t legally represent them.
- Cases where you need to keep commercial control — launching transfers ownership.
Not there yet? Build it first, then come back. The bar doesn’t move.
What it takes on your own,
and what it takes with us
On your own
- You need a company, a bank account, invoices, VAT, contracts.
- You need a market study you don’t have time to run.
- You need capital before the first customer says yes.
- You give up equity to raise it — and control with it.
- The technology sits finished and unused while you learn the rest.
With CDI
- We run the company, the contracts, the compliance and the operations.
- We run the market analysis before committing — and tell you what we find.
- We fund the commercialisation. You put in nothing.
- No equity is taken. It’s a temporary licence, not an investment round.
- Within 12 months your technology is in front of customers, or back with you.
See what’s in the portfolio Read the questions inventors ask
Send us what you’ve built.
A concept summary is enough to start. If it’s a fit we’ll invite you to sign an NDA and take it from there. You’ll hear back within 10 business days either way — and every number on this page is the number in the contract.