Dear Friends,
Allow me to inquire with you on a matter that is quite significant to me. Perhaps you could offer me some advice.
Since 2006, my wife and I have been running a small German company engaged in subcontracting the development of third-party scientific equipment. Since around 2014, we have been financing and actively participating in one of our own project – the development and establishment of production for an affordable portable MRI machine (www.mr-nib.com). We have already achieved initial results and obtained five issued American patents. Essentially, this equipment will enable the assessment of people's health in field conditions without requiring additional medical expertise. We hope that our initiative will be of great benefit to impoverished countries with limited access to medical research, as well as to nations in armed conflict where our equipment could potentially save many lives.
We aim to produce the first batch of such devices and are willing to manufacture them at cost, with the intention of providing them to those in need. However, we are seeking a grant to cover the costs of components and production. We are prepared to offer our equipment at a price lower than ultrasound devices, despite the fact that our equipment provides significantly more capabilities.
We (as German for-profit company) have already approached over a hundred grant organizations, primarily American and German, but we have received rejections from all of them, with no explanation as to why.
Could you please advise us on what we might be doing wrong? Is such an initiative not needed by people?
I also suspect that some might have the following thoughts about our initiative:
a. They may consider us profit-driven, assuming that we will make a lot of money from this grant. This is not true. We are genuinely prepared to provide a full report and prove that we will not profit from this initiative.
b. People suggest that we should seek venture capital. Yes, that's an option, but with venture capital, this equipment will never be inexpensive. After all, who would want to supply Hyperfine.io carts to those in need in Africa or in Ukraine?
So, what are we doing wrong? Is the initiative to create something affordable and of high quality, and thus help someone, simply not in vogue in the modern world?
Please share your thoughts in the comments on this post or kindly advise us on where to turn with this initiative.
Sincerely,
Ilgis
Dear lastmistborn, I am very grateful to you for your attention and the detailed explanation of potential issues. I will certainly inform DC that I have responded to his message.
I have seen, read, and understand that what you are writing is quite common, and I realize that this often happens, especially when funds are unfamiliar with you.
Furthermore, when I worked as a junior professor at the university, I wrote grants, and these grants were typically accepted. At that time, I also submitted and successfully published in journals such as JACS and Nature. Currently, I can file patent applications and receive patents from the USPTO without the need for significant revisions (i.e., on the first attempt). Our company already holds five granted American patents. This suggests that we have reasonable scientific or commercial results and that our team can quickly grasp the rules for submitting any document and successfully adhere to them.
Of course, we attempted to have our grant applications reviewed by third-party consultants. Unfortunately, we cannot afford to do this repeatedly without results, as consultants typically charge around 10% of the grant's value regardless of whether the application is successful. Due to this, we decided not to use their services, as it is not cost-effective for us.
The essence of our current proposal can be summarized in the following paragraph:
As a German commercial company, we are prepared to manufacture new innovative portable MRI devices (www.mr-nib.com) at cost, which amounts to €15,000 per unit if an order for 200 units is placed or €25,000 per unit if an order for 30 units is placed. We are committed to localizing the devices for the Ukrainian language and providing software updates free of charge for the next 8 years. We aim to deploy these portable MRI devices in conflict zones in Ukraine to save the lives of civilians and soldiers through early diagnosis. Why Ukraine? Partly because we have many relatives and acquaintances there, and we want to offer our assistance. Last year, we privately assisted by supplying uninterruptible power systems, and we would like to help in any way we can now.
We are also open to initiating any other similar humanitarian missions on our own.
We have reached out with this initiative to numerous Ukrainian politicians, including Mykhailo Fedorov, Rustem Umerov, and Volodymyr Klitschko. We have also contacted several politicians in the German Bundestag and approached several American military companies and organizations. Additionally, as mentioned earlier, we have submitted numerous grant applications for similar initiatives to various foundations, customizing each application to align with their objectives.
Unfortunately, discussions either reached a dead end or we received rejections. What was most unpleasant and unexpected for us is that we have never received a justified explanation for why our initiative was not supported.
As an ordinary person, I was genuinely surprised that, for example, a stored guided missile sent to Ukraine costs many times more than what we are requesting for our equipment. Even if that missile doesn't perform as expected, it is often attributed to the incompetence of Ukrainian military personnel. Meanwhile, our initiative for rapid injury diagnosis has failed to garner even the slightest response from anyone.