Capitalism depends on market growth; market growth comes from innovation in products and services. With the 4th industrial revolution well underway, capitalism promises to experience major shifts in how it is implemented. SBIR from the US government has pioneered a way to fund innovation, products that have never been done before.
SBIR US Government Innovation Funding
The Capitalistic shifts with innovation funding from governments around the world are documented in the WinterGreen Research study on that topic. Those shifts seek to leverage the infusion of large amounts of capital from governments into projects that implement innovation. This infusion of innovation funding is needed because enterprise organizations refuse to erode a profitable product revenue base in favor of building out an unproven innovation product, thereby creating an impasse. In general, the board of directors of a large enterprise organization will not let the executives erode the current business revenue stream with unproven technology. Then it falls to others to fund innovation.
Greentown Labs Sommerville MA at the Intersection of MIT and Harvard
Market growth for innovation comes from increased benefits of corporate positioning once the new technologies are adopted and become widespread. Funding generally comes from governments and foundations. Rapid adoption does not happen in a consistent manner unless there is an automated process in place. An automated process is just better and needs to be funded. Once one aspect of the innovative product is automated, there is the demand to automate all the processes across the board.