Technology Transfer Valley of Death: 2D Bridge & Cash-Flow Model

Every invention that leaves a university lab has to cross nine Technology Readiness Levels before it reaches a market-ready product, and the funding available to it changes completely along the way. This 2D companion renders that journey as a pannable, zoomable side-view bridge: a token representing the technology walks from TRL 1 to TRL 9, government grants keep it funded through early research, and — if you set the VC threshold too high, the VC rate too low, or the cost escalation too steep — it runs out of cash in the unfunded "Valley of Death" between prototype and pilot stage and visibly falls into the canyon. A live strip chart beneath the bridge tracks TRL, cash reserve and net cash flow across the whole run, driven by the exact same burn/funding equations as the 3D version. Tune the five parameters, drag to explore the bridge, and watch a real technology-transfer failure mode play out mechanically.