CASE STUDY
AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
Customer
Industry: Research and Technology Organisation (RTO) and Applied Research Institution (non-university)
Project: Strategic Advisory and Venture Development for AIT’s DeepTech Spin-off Portfolio and Entrepreneurship Strategy
Company: AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
Contact persons: Alexander Svejkovsky (CEO), Hans-Peter Blahowsky (Entrepreneurship), AIT
Challenges
- Transitioning from a basic internal process into a professionalised venture-building engine with standardised milestones and quality gates.
- Bridging the early-stage knowledge gap in governance, cap table health, and scaling readiness.
- Professionalising governance and founder dynamics to meet VC standards. Guiding founders through startup valuation and investor communication.
- Cultivating a commercial-first mindset by shifting from technology push to market pull.
Our Approach and Execution
Framework Professionalization
Overhauled the entrepreneurship strategy to align with international venture standards, integrating Scaling Readiness milestones and standardised governance templates.
Founder Enablement
Delivered hands-on, vertical-specific workshops focusing on critical failure points, co-founder alignment, investor readiness, and strategic sales.
Portfolio Advisory
Provided strategic partnership and an external investor lens, implemented OKR frameworks, and anchored an entrepreneurial mindset across the organisation. mten Unternehmen.
Results and Impact
- 6 Spin-offs coached and internal process transformed
- VC-Grade moved from the checklist to the professional gate process
Key Highlights
- Moved from a checklist to a VC-grade gate process for venture building
- Elevated spin-offs from research projects to investor-ready ventures
- De-risked the human factor by optimizing cofounder alignment, state-of-the-art
- governance setup, and integrating commercial leadership early in the lifecycle
Key Learnings
- Success required more than just business templates; it required deep coaching to help founders move from technical perfectionism to a market-driven mindset
- The most fragile part of the spin-off process is the “Social Contract” between co-founders, which needs as much attention as the technology itself
- Standard startup solutions don’t work in an RTO environment; bespoke, nuanced vesting and governance schemes are essential
About the collaboration
Petra provided invaluable guidance in professionalizing AIT’s spin-off strategy and preparing our founders for the venture capital market. Her deep expertise was the critical link between our scientific excellence and commercial readiness, helping us navigate everything from co-founder alignment to scalingreadiness. We highly value her ‘hands-on’ approach and her unique ability to identify exactly what a research-driven organization needs to succeed. A highly professional partner who delivers exactly what her clients need.
Mag. Alexander Svejkovsky, Managing Director, AIT Austrian Institute of Technology
AIT engaged us to provide the specialized venture-building expertise and operational templates missing from their internal framework, transforming their research outputs into ‘investor-ready’ market leaders. It is always a pleasure to work with excellent teams in deeptech and to support them to cover the gaps on scaling readiness and entrepreneurship to help them become a scaleup. -Teams auf ihrem Weg zur Skalierungsfähigkeit zu begleiten.
Petra Wolkenstein, CEO Konsultori