Lab to Startup
Hundreds of thousands of researchers around the world are working to improve life and address imminent threats to humanity. Often, the research ends up in the “Scientific valley of death” in the form of publications and patents that never see the light of the day. Welcome to “Lab to Startup” a podcast aimed at showcasing the effort needed to translate lab research to startups. The show has two main goals: 1. Sharing the stories of those scientists and engineers who have successfully founded startups based on the research at university and national labs. 2. Highlighting the resources and tools needed to help those aspiring to launch startups in the deeptech space. We also want this show to be a way to communicate those technology development stories to the general public (taxpayers funding the research) in the hope that they will continue to support such research and startups. About the host Naresh Sunkara, Ph.D. is a chemical biologist, entrepreneur and the founder and Executive Director of the Berkeley Postdoc Entrepreneurship Program at the University of California, Berkeley. He has been running this program for the past ten years that has helped graduate students and postdocs at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and at several other universities in the US. He was previously a postdoc at UC Berkeley developing lipid nanoparticles for delivery of mRNA based drugs targeting viruses and cancers.
info_outline
Partnering to accelerate therapeutics: A primer on forming alliances and their management
12/10/2024
Partnering to accelerate therapeutics: A primer on forming alliances and their management
Monica Rosoff, the founder and CEO of LBBAL™ Alianza. Prior to launching Alianza, Monica was a partnering executive with roles of increasing seniority at Genentech, Gilead, Kite and Exelixis. Over the course of over two decades, she had the opportunity to lead and participate in a wide diversity of deals, negotiations, diligence exercises, alliances, technology transfers, M&A integrations, dispute resolution negotiations, amendments and terminations–at all stages of the drug development and commercialization lifecycle and in multiple therapeutic areas. Dr. Rosoff earned a doctorate in Pharmacology from the University of Washington and conducted her postdoctoral work at Stanford. We talked about lessons learned from her experiences in alliance management, especially for early stage startups. Shownotes Monica Rosoff Monica’s entry into alliance management Principles that guide a good partnership: What’s best for the patient? Find synergies, timing and motivations Who to approach at a big pharma when identifying a partner? Evaluating motivations of a big pharma: Get specific Building trust Performing due diligence-How? Power dynamics: How to deal with a big partner when you have a power imbalance? Role of lawyers Communicating failures Have a list of “To-dont’s” as opposed to “To-do” list Conflicts might be important Repeating problems: Lessons learned How to prepare for unexpected changes at big companies? Conflict resolution: What to pick fights on? Allocating resources
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/34273015
info_outline
From Pitches to Stories: Transforming Complex Ideas into Engaging Narratives
09/10/2024
From Pitches to Stories: Transforming Complex Ideas into Engaging Narratives
Zack Shildhorn is an investing Partner at venture firm Lux Capital. He played multiple key roles that helped the firm scale from less than $100M to more than $4B in assets under management. After witnessing thousands of pitches, he saw that even the most disruptive startups often struggled to develop effective narratives. Having worked closely with leading technology companies as an investor and Board member, he brings a unique ability to connect with key stakeholders and distill complex ideas into engaging and relatable presentations. In order to help founders beyond Lux, He launched a firm called Series Z, to help a select group of tech companies and funds bring their vision to life. Zack also recently partnered with Khosla ventures to help founders there as well. Zack kindly agreed to share some of the lessons from his experience teaching the art of storytelling to founders and VCs. I think you will benefit tremendously from this episode. Show Notes: Series Z: Zack Schildhorn: Most founders are in a challenged position Repetition, iteration, feedback Founders have the disadvantage of not knowing an investor’s mindset Selling vision: Why should investors care? Framing your pitch: Ways to capture investor’s attention How to appeal to the emotions of an investor? Fear and greed Starting a presentation with words and not slides Presenting technical idea: How not to inundate listeners with too much data Reframing problems: Addressing known apprehensions How to not get offended by a question or being defensive? Media links: Power of Narrative for Entrepreneurs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-llii7frwco Framing your pitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U4V89rywlR0 Pitching investors: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYkOoRJGuvk
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/32896717
info_outline
Turning great science into impactful medicine: Lessons from Corey Goodman, Pioneer in Science and Venture Capital
07/16/2024
Turning great science into impactful medicine: Lessons from Corey Goodman, Pioneer in Science and Venture Capital
Corey Goodman, Ph.D., is the managing partner of venBio, a venture capital firm he cofounded in 2011. venBio already has 7 FDA approved drugs on the market, saving and improving lives. Corey spent 25 years as Professor of Biology at Stanford University and Evan Rauch Chair of Neurobiology at U.C. Berkeley, where he was a HHMI Investigator, Head of the Neurobiology Division, and co-founder and Director of the Wills Neuroscience Institute. Corey co-founded seven biotechnology companies, and led one of them (Renovis) as President and CEO from a private to public company until its acquisition by Evotec. Two of the companies he co-founded have been acquired and three have done IPOs to date. He then moved to Pfizer, where he was President of the Biotherapeutics and Bioinnovation Center and a member of the executive leadership team. We talk about transformation of UC Berkeley as a startup powerhouse; his entrepreneurial journey starting with the founding of Exelixis while being a faculty at UC Berkeley; role played by mentors and co-founders; lessons learned from founding startups that founders today could benefit from; changing careers at various stages of his life as he turned 50 and 60 (he recently turned 73); lessons from big pharma; experiences and lessons from partnerships and acquisitions by big pharma; and his experiences investing. Show Notes: Corey Goodman’s autobiography: Turn around story of UC Berkeley entrepreneurship: remarkable 10 years People and leadership matter Carol Christ : Corey’s first startup, co-founded with . joined the company as CEO in 1996; Learning from genetic modeling organisms Find a big brother/sister who can help you: Role played by and : Corey’s mentor Taking risks at various stages of life: Turning 50, 60, and now 73 Life as an executive at Pfizer and lessons learned in that space Big pharma companies are unbelievably inefficient in early stage drug discovery Importance of academia and startup ecosystem in drug discovery Lessons from big pharma acquiring biotechs: What, when, how and what not to do Lessons learned from biotech partnering with big pharma: Don’t partner on everything- keep some to yourself Operator VCs: Investors/board members who went through building companies are more valuable than those who come from consulting backgrounds Building teams Transition to Pfizer and out: “Come change the world” Launching : Everybody’s voice matters Investment thesis
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/32097172
info_outline
Pushing Boundaries: Abhishek Tripathi’s Experience with NASA, SpaceX, UC Berkeley and Startups
06/25/2024
Pushing Boundaries: Abhishek Tripathi’s Experience with NASA, SpaceX, UC Berkeley and Startups
Abhishek Tripathi, is the Director of Mission operations of the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley. Abhi is also the Chair of the Air and Space track startups at Skydeck, which is UC Berkeley's startup accelerator program. For over two decades, Abhi has been at the forefront of human and robotic space exploration. At SpaceX, he spearheaded the certification of both the cargo and crew Dragon programs, a pivotal achievement in commercial spaceflight. His expertise was further showcased as Dragon Mission Director, where he orchestrated a dozen critical cargo resupply missions to the International Space Station. Abhi's technical acumen reached new heights when he assumed the role of Dragon Chief Engineer for Flight Reliability on the groundbreaking Crew Demo 1 and Demo 2 missions. Prior to his transformative work at SpaceX, Abhi honed his skills during a decade-long tenure as an Aerospace Systems engineer at NASA, laying the foundation for his remarkable career in space technology. We talked about the lessons learned from Abhi’s journey at NASA, SpaceX and his work at the University of California, Berkeley, where he continues to lead several space missions. He shared some of the lessons learned from working at a highly demanding job at SpaceX; and also translated his experiences into lessons for startups and life in general. And Yes, he did share some of his experiences working with Elon Musk. Show Notes: Abhishek Tripathi Setting overarching goals that ties with the vision for a company Building factories to vow consumers and the larger population (new age moats) Journey at NASA Try to work at a cutting edge company before launching a startup, (except if you are a deeply involved in a research area during postdoc or similar compelling situation) Picking advisors: Pick tactical advisors instead of strategic ones End all instances of gatekeeping (one of the rules set by Musk) Leading the Dragon mission to deliver cargo to ISS Regulations: Working with NASA/government for approvals ‘Bring me a rock exercise” Experiences working on Falcon 9 mission Transition to academia “Other than the brutal pace of Space X, we have many of the elements of Space X at Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California, Berkeley.” Space track What startups in the space track should possess Timing, funding, technology readiness SSL LEADERSHIP AND ADMINISTRATIVE CONTACTS
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/31870522
info_outline
Lessons from Evolution of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem at UC Berkeley
04/30/2024
Lessons from Evolution of Innovation and Entrepreneurship Ecosystem at UC Berkeley
Richard Lyons, Ph.D., is the Associate Vice Chancellor and Chief Innovation & Entrepreneurship Officer, at the University of California, Berkeley. Rich is an economist and the former dean of the business school. Rich will become the next chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. We talk about a wide variety of topics around the Evolution of innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem at Berkeley. We covered topics like paradigm shifts, cultural transformations, overcoming inertia; global impact and many others. I hope you get some insights from this story, and walk away with appreciation and potentially actionable steps if you are trying to build startup ecosystems on your campuses. Show Notes: Report on entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley from the Faculty Entrepreneurship Committee: UC Regents taskforce report: From Discovery to Societal Impact: A Roadmap to Unleashing UC Innovation and Entrepreneurship: Cultural transformation at UC Berkeley: Bakar fellows program: Cultural transformation to embrace entrepreneurship Mission of academic institutions is impact Overcoming inertia at academic institutions Ecosystem dynamics & talent pipeline Start with “Yes, if” framework to address difficult questions Pilot programs Inclusivity: Failures and hurdles Ethical considerations Parts of the ecosystem that could be replicated and hard to do so by other universities
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/31036393
info_outline
Civilization Ventures: Lessons learned from founding, exiting and applying them to support founders as an investor
04/09/2024
Civilization Ventures: Lessons learned from founding, exiting and applying them to support founders as an investor
Shahram Seyedin-Noor is the founder and managing partner at Civilization Ventures. Shahram received a JD from Harvard and worked at Wilson Solsinis and Cooley before going into investment banking at firms like Goldman Sachs and Bank of America. He then entered the startup world co-founding several startups. He eventually ended up Angel investing and in 2017, launched Civilization Ventures, focused on supporting cutting-edge innovations in health tech and biology. Shahram has over a dozen exits under his belt, which is a phenomenal achievement. Here are some of his investments: Rewrite (acq. by Intellia), Replace (acq. by Tome), Lemonaid (acq. by 23andme), Singular Bio (acq. by Invitae), Rocket Pharma (listed on Nasdaq), Palamedrix (acq. by SomaLogic), Foresight Diagnostics, BillionToOne, Omada and others. Shahram takes an active role in company building. Prior to founding CV, Shahram was the founding CEO/Chairman of Inspirna, an oncology therapeutics company currently in Phase 2 human trials, and the CFO and VP of Corporate Development at NextBio, a genomics software pioneer acquired by Illumina. Shownotes: Success has a thousand fathers but failure is an orphan Accountability: Few people blame themselves for failure and give credit for success to others Evolution of mindset: Don’t let others dictate what you can or supposed to do in life EQ is more/equally important than IQ Transition from law school to startups Advice for recruiting a non-scientific co-founder Investment thesis at Civilization Ventures: Drive to do things differently Lessons learned from exits Contact email:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/30737228
info_outline
Humba Ventures: Investing in Deep Tech Startups with Engineering Focus
02/27/2024
Humba Ventures: Investing in Deep Tech Startups with Engineering Focus
Leo Polovets is the Co-founder and General Partner at Susa Ventures. Leo focuses on enterprise software and technical products at Susa. About two years ago, He also started Humba Ventures, a fund that invests in deep tech and critical national sectors like energy and defense at Humba. Leo led Susa's investments in Mashgin, People Data Labs, Scalyr, and Treasury Prime. Having been a software engineer for 10+ years, Leo approaches challenges with an engineering mindset and supports portfolio companies in vetting and hiring technical talent. Prior to Susa, Leo was the second engineering hire at Linkedin, where he worked on the first versions of products like LinkedIn Jobs and LinkedIn Groups. Leo then worked on payment fraud detection algorithms at Google, and was also an early engineer at Factual, where he built data processing software. Leo received a bachelor's degree in Engineering and Applied Science (Computer Science) from Caltech. We talk about lessons that translate from investing in traditional startups; explore lessons learned about market sizing, pricing, team dynamics, managing burn, scaling, valuation and many other topics in the deep tech space. Shownotes: Leo’s presentation on “Exploring Startup Ideas” Thinking about making money for scientific founders Thinking about market attributes for a potential startup Intro to Humba ventures Investing in deep tech Founder-market fit; Time to make money Investment thesis Communication: between team members, to investors and beyond Working with startup teams: Commercialization Pricing in deep tech: Think of value being created How to ask for money for your product? Aloha robot- Story telling Manage your burn! Scaling: Calibrating on talent; learning to delegate; firing Bs and B+s on the team Keeping up with new technologies Thoughts on valuation What Leo likes to hear while being pitched to
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/29906278
info_outline
Berkeley Skydeck- Catalyzing the growth of deep tech startups at the world’s number one ranked public university.
02/13/2024
Berkeley Skydeck- Catalyzing the growth of deep tech startups at the world’s number one ranked public university.
Caroline Winnett is the Executive Director of Berkeley Skydeck, a startup accelerator at the University of California, Berkeley. Skydeck started as a mentoring space in 2012 and soon translated into one of the leading startup accelerators in the world. SkyDeck was Formed as a partnership between UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, the College of Engineering, and the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research. While it offers all the benefits of a traditional accelerator, what makes Skydeck special is the vast resources of the world’s number one ranked public university. The robust and vibrant ecosystem includes a deep network of advisors, industry partners, and attracts some of the best investors. I have seen its evolution first hand because of my own association since my postdocs days at UC Berkeley We discuss the evolution of the startup ecosystem at UC Berkeley and then dive into how Skydeck has been supporting deep tech startups, challenges and lessons learned. Shownotes: Berkeley Skydeck: https://skydeck.berkeley.edu/ Startup resources at Berkeley: https://begin.berkeley.edu/ Berkeley named Evolution of startup ecosystem at UC Berkeley: Pre & post Skydeck Changing academia-industry relations Skydeck is just not for UC Berkeley community Support for deep tech startups at Skydeck Criteria for picking deep tech startups for accelerations Lessons learned from working with scientific and faculty founders Scalability and market potential of deep tech startups Partnerships with corporations: realistic expectations Picking advisors Commercializing deep tech startups Investing in deep tech: Evaluating founders Tips for applying to Berkeley Skydeck Apply here: https://skydeck.berkeley.edu/apply/
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/29932038
info_outline
Medtech Innovator and Biotools Innovator: accelerator for medical device, digital health and diagnostic companies
01/16/2024
Medtech Innovator and Biotools Innovator: accelerator for medical device, digital health and diagnostic companies
Paul Grand is the founder and CEO; Ayelet Marom is the Program Director for BioTools Innovator, which focuses specifically on biotools; and Jim West is the Associate Director, BioTools Innovator, who was previously the Co-Founder and CEO of, Clara Biotech, which was founded in 2018 and was acquired by Innovaprep in the summer of 2023. Jim was the first founder to go through the biotools program. In this episode of lab to startup, we first discuss some of the challenges that affect medtech and biotool technology startups, and then go into ways that medtech innovator, an accelerator program is helping founders in this space, especially around lessons learned and how the program has evolved into one of the best accelerators in this space. Founding story of Medtech Innovator Things medtech startups struggle with: Articulating value proposition; understanding reimbursement; having the wrong CEO; staying in stealth mode; choosing the wrong indication Medtech innovator “Value program” Value coaches from established companies like J&J How startups get accepted to the program No equity, no fees and no strings attached for being a part of the program Bringing the right investors to the table to support founders Biotools innovator program: Challenges in the biotools space How investors are different in this space Pay for Service as a model Story of Jim West, Founder and CEO of Clara biotech, that went through the program Advice on slide decks Info session videos:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/29495693
info_outline
Metcela - Treating chronic organ diseases using a novel fibroblast-based technology
01/02/2024
Metcela - Treating chronic organ diseases using a novel fibroblast-based technology
Kenichi Nogami is the co-founder and CEO of Metcela, a clinical-stage biotechnology startup pioneering the research and development of fibroblast and stem cell-based therapy for chronic heart diseases that currently have limited therapeutic options. We talk about the current treatments for heart failure and how the fibroblast technology could help this space. We explore the founding story; setting smaller milestones and fundraising to meet those goals; the role of recruiting firms in hiring in japan; building a flat structure at the startup, as opposed to a hierarchical system that Japan is generally known for; and how Ken’s investment banking experience helped with acquisition of another biotech startup; and many other stories. Shownotes Fibroblast technology for treating Heart failure Current treatments and potential of regenerative capabilities Founding story: Investment banker meets a PhD student and launch a startup Nedo, Japan: Technology-Based Startup Support Program IP: University waives its right to file a patent and the startup files the patent Co-founder chemistry Business model evolution Immune response challenges developing cell therapy for heart diseases Fundraising stories: Raising money from Japanese investors vs those outside Japan Raising from university derived VCs Cell manufacturing challenges Acquiring a startup while being a startup Evolution as a CEO Team and hiring process: Supply drove the hiring more than demand in many cases Building culture Hierarchy vs flat structure: decision making process Challenges building a biotech startup in Japan- talent, infrastructure; and need to expand globally
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/29250023
info_outline
Lessons learned from a scientist entrepreneur turned investor
11/28/2023
Lessons learned from a scientist entrepreneur turned investor
Caleb Bell III, Ph.D., is a venture partner at Corundum Systems Biology and also the President of Corundum convergence institute. We talk about the founding story of Bell biosystems; how they were able to work at various labs around the country with very little money; building teams, culture; raising money, interacting with investors, leadership transitions; and also how the company filed for bankruptcy, although after he left the startup;. Kalub agreed to dip into his experiences both as a founder and investor, and share some of the lessons learned around all these topics, which I believe will be very helpful for aspiring or current founders out there. Shownotes: Early life as an entrepreneur and grad school training Thoughts on working with law firms: corporate vs IP attorneys Inspiration for launching Bell Biosystems (hint: Listening to NPR science Friday) Labs around the country helped perform the initial proof of concept experiments Market hypothesis Convincing the right kind of people to work with you: challenges and lessons learned Advice on recruiting and growing teams Culture: Two types of sins Becoming a manager from a founder Communicating with investors: Being a good steward of money Magnetic cells Thoughts on charging early customers;price discovery Sophisticated vs unsophisticated investors: Do your research! Leadership transitions Transitioning to investing: PE, VC Lessons learned from time at the PE firm Corundum systems biology
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/28809013
info_outline
NAMUH - Attempt at closing the gap between infant formula and human breast milk
10/24/2023
NAMUH - Attempt at closing the gap between infant formula and human breast milk
Chaeyoung Shin was the Co-founder and CEO of NAMUH, a startup focused on developing yeast fermentation technologies to produce human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs). HMOs are crucial, fiber-equivalent macronutrients that are currently lacking in most formulas. Integrating them in sufficient amounts could significantly close the nutritional disparity between human milk and formula. We talk about the story behind the origin of NAMUH; transformation of Chaeyoung from a freshly minted Ph.D. to a CEO; lessons learned in that process; fundraising efforts; lessons learned from building the team; experimenting with business models; partnerships developed; realities of the markets and the forces driving the adoption (or not); and the unfortunate shutting down of the startup Shownotes: - - NAMUH is HUMAN read in reverse - Developing yeast fermentation technologies to produce human milk oligosaccharides (HMOs) - HMOs help build the gut microbiome of babies and basically set them up for life - Babies are born with pristine gut, without a microbiome - Applied for a job and ended up becoming a co-founder - Stigma behind scientists becoming CEOs - Team building was hard - Hiring decisions based on fear and lessons learned - Support system - Bringing on a business leader on to the team - Startup incubator journey - Being an immigrant+scientist+female founder - Lessons learned from working with investors - Getting advice: signal vs noise - Experimentation with business models - Working with infant formula companies - Regulations: Maybe the bar is too low - Role of pricing - Mistakes that other founders could learn from
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/28396598
info_outline
NASA fueling innovation through SBIR/STTR, Awards & Prizes
08/01/2023
NASA fueling innovation through SBIR/STTR, Awards & Prizes
Jenn Gustetic is the Director of Early Stage Innovations and Partnerships at NASA. In this episode of Lab to startup, we will learn about various funding mechanisms that NASA provides to support innovation, primarily to support NASA space missions. We talk about the funding process through contracts; differences between grants and contracts; NASA’s involvement once they fund to support researchers and startups; funding dual use technologies; surprising speed of their funding process; partnership opportunities they offer; procurement of technologies by NASA and end with learning about how one can license technologies from NASA. Jenn shared so many stories like that of the landing of the Curiosity Rover on Mars, and other technologies they funded. Shownotes: - - - Who we fund - Process of funding - Awards given as contracts, because NASA is one of the customers - Grants vs contracts - Heavily involved with the grantee - Strong touch points with NASA - Process of granting monies and funding levels - - - - - Dual use technologies: 80 problem statements for small businesses; 3 months to decision: - - Reviewers- their composition and assessing business proposals - Partnerships: Resources beyond money - Facility use agreement; - Procurement of technologies by NASA post funding - - -
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/27615192
info_outline
Independent directors for startups
07/04/2023
Independent directors for startups
Ryan Caldbeck, is the COO of Dune, a powerful analytics platform for blockchain research. It can be used to query, extract, and visualize vast amounts of data on the Ethereum blockchain. Ryan was previously the founder, and CEO of CircleUp, a technology platform focused on finding and evaluating private companies. He is also an angel investor in several high-growth technology companies. In this episode of lab to startup, we talk about the role of independent directors at startups; how to find them and work with them; how they can mediate between the other board directors like investors and the CEO; when and how long to bring them on for. We do a deep dive into the topic of building trust, not only with the IDs, but also other members of the startup like employees, co-founders, board of directors and others. Shownotes: - Tweet storm about independent directors: - Who is an independent director (ID) - How to pick them - What and where do you look for them? - Trust = (Reliability x Credibility x Authenticity) / Self-Interest. - Building trust - Writing the job description for an ID - How IDs can mediate between investors and the CEO - Receiving and offering feedback - What point of the startup journey should we bring on an ID? How many? - Etiquette to building a relation with independent directors - IDs and board members interacting with upper management
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/27359397
info_outline
Feeding our astronauts - Reflections of a NASA food scientist
06/20/2023
Feeding our astronauts - Reflections of a NASA food scientist
Vickie Kloeris is a food scientist with an out of this world career. She worked at NASA in space food systems for 34 years. She served as the NASA manager of the Shuttle first and then the International Space Station food systems. She and her teams worked through the complex challenges of creating tasty, nutritious, long-lasting, easy-to-prepare meals that support the dietary and psychological needs of astronauts living on the space station. Vickie has worked with 100s of astronauts to plan their favorite meals and holiday specialty meals for space travel. We talk about the history of feeding our astronauts; working with the US military; evolution of food systems at NASA to feed our astronauts; depending on the Russian space agency in the initial days and also working with other space agencies. Vickie shared the challenges for the future manned mission to Mars; and how food science and technology has been at the core of so many food preparation and packaging technologies we take for granted. We also talk about how we might be able to use these technologies to address hunger and reduce food wastage. Shownotes: - - Only 16 of the 105 space flights had flown by the time Vickie camke to work for NASA - Food sessions for shuttle crew members: 100% personal menus - Commercial off the shelf items (COTS) - MRE: Meals ready to eat made by army contractors (high salt and fat content) bad for astronauts in microgravity - Changes for the space station Freedom - Challenges with refrigeration: Freezers for food or science - Moving away from canned food - Academia, industry and US military came up with a retort pouch - "It's not gourmet food but pretty good" - Commercially sterile food - Testing the food for the bad bacteria like E.Coli, Salmonella, etc. - Downside of freeze dried food - Challenges for the mission to Mars - Standardized food menu - Challenges packing beverages - Taking tortillas to space: challenges with bread - - Reflections on collaboration with - No insights into Chinese systems - Using this technology to feed the poor and prevent food wastage - A lot of people don't even know what food scientists do - Vickie Kloeris's book: Space Bites: Reflections of a NASA food scientist
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/27195360
info_outline
Developing foundational tools for engineering metabolism inside cells to solve important societal problems.
06/06/2023
Developing foundational tools for engineering metabolism inside cells to solve important societal problems.
Jay Keasling, the CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute (JBEI). He is also a Professor in the Department of Chemical & Biomolecular Engineering and also the Department of Bioengineering at the University of California, Berkeley.. He’s also a Senior Faculty Scientist @ Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and also holds other prestigious positions around the world. We talk about Jay’s initial foray into startups; working with grad students and postdocs; challenges translating lab research to startups; funding; partnerships; equity splits; lessons learned from failures and other topics. Shownotes: - Jay Keasling CV: - - Initial foray into startups: Amyris - Deciding which research projects become startups - Working with graduate students and postdocs - Building partnerships - Working with investors: Philanthropy, angel investors, VCs and corporate VCs - Faculty co-founders and equity split challenges - Pivots & networking - Lessons from failures
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/27047571
info_outline
PCDworks: Hardtech Basecamp Incubator for building hardware products
04/18/2023
PCDworks: Hardtech Basecamp Incubator for building hardware products
Donna Rainone and Mike Rainone are the founders of PCDworks. PCDworks is a technology development company that helped develop hardware for over 50 big companies in the oil and gas, transportation, healthcare and several other industries; and now helping startups with a new incubator model. We first talk about lessons learned from building innovative hardware products for big companies; how they use principles of epistemology while developing new products; how they borrow lessons from their training in psychology, architecture and engineering in this process; challenges with innovation at big companies; and then talk about their transition to helping startups with all this experience, where we talk about their ideation sessions; how they work with founders; their observations on common mistakes that founders make in the hardware space; infrastructure they provide and related topics. Shownotes: - - Work with big companies - Tracking down the best around the world - Using psychology while working with people you don't know - Epistemology: Everything in product development process is a hypothesis - Ideation sessions - Oil companies learning from human biology: - Decomposing problems - Working with startups - Common mistakes and dipping into experiences to build better products - How could startups work with PCDworks - "Letter of intent" is worth the toilet paper that it is written on - Infrastructure at PCDworks - Intellectual property agreements - What would it cost to work with PCD? - Mistakes to avoid - Contact:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/26553273
info_outline
VeriSIM Life: Using AI to build translational indices to push better drug moieties into clinicals
04/04/2023
VeriSIM Life: Using AI to build translational indices to push better drug moieties into clinicals
Jo Varshney, Ph.D., is the founder and CEO of VeriSIM Life, a startup developing disease-specific simulation software designed to replace animal drug testing by using artificial intelligence. We talk about translational gap in drug discovery, the technology VeriSIM is developing, especially their virtual mouse models; some of the mathematical models being used in the process of drug discovery, challenges building partnerships with big pharma; How FDA is evolving their thought process about accepting data from AI; acquiring another startup while being a startup; and finally about spinning out a pharma company as a subsidiary. Shownotes: - - Translational gap & current technologies - Verisim's technology: -Building virtual mouse - Avoiding the royalty trap early on - What made investors trust a solo founder? - Mathematical models for biology - Building a startup not spun out of a university or without a PI a part of it - Filtering investors: Understanding the No's - Building partnerships - Lessons learned about commercialization - Things that didn't work while working with partners - Comparing apples to oranges - Product evolution: Translational index - Data sources - FDA efforts: How FDA is evolving their thought process about accepting data from AI - Team - Acquiring another startup - Spinning out a therapeutic company -
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/26421786
info_outline
Osage University Partners- Funding university spinouts
03/21/2023
Osage University Partners- Funding university spinouts
Manny Stockman is a Partner at Osage University Partners. OUP exclusively invests in startups spun out of university research. We talk about the investment thesis of Osage University Partners; technology readiness challenges; lessons learned from investing in early stage technologies at universities; challenges with the current market research used to evaluate product market fit; and spend some time talking about equity splits involving non-operating faculty members that co-founded startups. Shownotes: - - No better time to launch a startup in the deeptech space - Startup hubs - Fund background - Investment thesis - Thoughts about market readiness - Being better prepared while approaching Osage: help them get to yes - Preparing to building startups at universities - Advice on amount for money that needs to be raised - Knocking out risks at early stages - How to differentiate signal from noise while talking to experts about new technology - Art of questioning to get to why a technology might not work - Challenges identifying product market fit and a need for new models - Investment amounts and stages: $250k-$8M - Patience while investing - Challenges with equity splits: Evaluating past vs future contributions - Past talk about equity splits at university startups: - Incubator models and thoughts about diluting equity
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/26273958
info_outline
Lucira Health
03/07/2023
Lucira Health
Debkishora Mitra and John Waldeisen are the co-founders of Lucira Health. Lucira Health, which was originally founded as Diassess, is the first company to get an FDA approval for at-home PCR based test for COVID. We talk about the story of Lucira from its founding stage to raising; the technological and market based pivots; raising over $250M (including an IPO); COVID; leadership transition; regulatory affairs; ups and downs of the journey; FDA approval of at-home flu and covid test and the unfortunate bankruptcy. Shownotes: - - Educational backgrounds of the founders & how they met - Market exploration in search of billion dollar markets: markets for diseases like Malaria not big enough (~$50M) - Technology development: Disposable RT PCR; Passive Fluid actuation; Colorimetric PCR- Visible DNA amplification - - Running PCR in the second bedroom at home; struggling to pay rent - Raising seed round - Visa struggles- Detour to deal with immigration struggles - Growing the team; mistakes - Transparency, radical candor - Ego - Fundraising: Kissing the frogs; building soft circles - Diagnostics market is super hard - Non-dilutive funding; mental models - Venture capital: Lessons learned - Pivots: Technological and market driven (STD, flu, COVID) - Challenges: Regulatory, customer centric thinking, scalability (manufacturing, distribution) - Deep dive into regulatory challenges: Issues with comparing with predicates - "In the diagnostic space, 'you don't want to be the first in the market" - Selecting an advisor to provide regulatory guidance for a startup - Deep dive into product development - Understanding the value of luck: Having a plan B - Evolution of the "Go to market" strategy - Government policies: Macroeconomic factors that affect pricing for startups - Create options as the CEO - Building the narrative - Leadership transition; journey towards IPO - VCs tie your personality to your startup- something to keep in mind for founders - Highs and the lows
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/26134866
info_outline
Legal 101 for deeptech founders; Understanding the basics; dilution, and safeguarding employee equity
02/21/2023
Legal 101 for deeptech founders; Understanding the basics; dilution, and safeguarding employee equity
Nick Dorsey and Amanda Gold are partners at Cravath, Swaine and Moore, LLP. Cravath has been known as one of the premier law firms in the US for more than two centuries. We talk about a wide variety of topics involving legal aspects for startups from incorporation to exit- incorporation, picking a law firm, equity split, vesting, hiring first employees or consultants, creating the right incentive structures using equity, valuation, negotiating with investors, dilution of equity and safeguarding founder and employee equity. This is meant to be a primer on legal aspects for aspiring founders and also early stage founders listening to this podcast. Show notes: - - , - Incorporation:LLC, S-Corp, C-corp, Up-C structure - How to find a law firm to work with? - Charter, Bylaws, Shareholders agreement, 83b - Question to ask a potential co-founder: "How long do you intend to be at the startup?" - Can a startup pick more than one firm? - Equity split, vesting, rights - Hiring your first employees or consultants, creating the right incentive structures using equity - Restricted stock, RSU, stock options - Seed funding- Convertible notes, SAFE - Valuation, 409A, post-valuation, pre-valuation - Don't get stuck on valuation - Negotiating with investors, M&A, IPO - Tag along lines, drag along rights, consent rights - Liquidity, secondary sale - Trying to safeguard employee equity- providing liquidity to employees
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/25953648
info_outline
Cuberg- Next generation Lithium metal battery technology for the electric mobility industry
01/17/2023
Cuberg- Next generation Lithium metal battery technology for the electric mobility industry
Richard Wang, Ph.D., is the Founder and CEO of Cuberg, a startup building the world’s first aviation-certified lithium metal battery pack. Robert is also the CEO at Northvolt America, which acquired Cuberg in 2021. We talk about the current challenges around battery innovation and solutions that are being worked on followed by Richard’s journey from being a PhD student at Stanford where he also picked up his startup education; the technology behind the lithium metal battery they developed; lessons learned from customer discovery exercise; and also from Validation of battery performance claims by the Department of Energy; the reason for going after aerospace industry; stories about his fundraising journey; and finally about being acquired by Northvolt. Shownotes: - - Challenges in the battery industry on the technology innovation aspect - Overview of technologies being developed to address the challenges - Thought process behind launching Cuberg - Influence of Peter Thiel's class () and - - Lithium metal anode technology (Cuberg) - Validation of battery performance claims by the Department of Energy - Team, early hires, cultural fit, and lessons learned - Blog on hiring - Incubators/accelerators considered, and why Richard picked Cyclotron Road - Grant funding - VCs are probably not a good fit for battery technology startups - Lessons learned from grant submissions - Granting agencies: , , - Interactions with VCs - Strategic investors - Customer discovery process and how they ended up in aerospace industry - Lessons learnt from pursuing the wrong early adopters- lessons learnt from NSF ICorps - Acquisition by - Careers at Cuberg:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/25595127
info_outline
Gradient- Building smart heat pumps that use better coolants to cool and heat the world
01/03/2023
Gradient- Building smart heat pumps that use better coolants to cool and heat the world
Vince Romanin, Ph.D., is the co-founder and CEO of Gradient. They are developing a new heat pump technology to address the impact that air conditioners impose on our climate. We talk about the problem with the current HVAC systems and air conditioners, the energy consumption and pollution they cause, history of heat pumps, and then learn about the new heat pump technology that gradient has developed to address some of those challenges. We then get into the details about the founding story; lessons learnt from grant writing; working with policy makers; crucial lessons learnt from customer discovery; role that timing plays and about why building hardware is hard. - - Building decarbonized HVACs - Sticky problems with HVAC: Emissions from electricity; use of fossil fuels for heating buildings; use of refrigerants - History of heat pumps - Problems with current heat pumps - Lessons from failed grant applications - Grants validate other granting agencies and private investors - Founders should align the funding agencies and investors - Pivot: Driven by the discovery that customers care more for the price than efficiency - Customer discovery process, - Timeline for achieving the product market fit. - Working with government agencies/policy makers - Biggest takeaways from being accelerated at Activate - Pitch to VCs: Explain why your company exists - Role of timing - Hardware is hard & scalability -
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/25461318
info_outline
Valitor- Engineering better medicines by leveraging its multi-valent biopolymer technology
12/13/2022
Valitor- Engineering better medicines by leveraging its multi-valent biopolymer technology
Wesley Jackson, Ph..D., is the co-founder, President and Chief Scientific Officer of Valitor. Wes was the founding CEO and led the startup through its Series B financing where they raised over$30M to date. Valitor is a biotech startup that uses a novel protein-biopolymer conjugation technology that was licensed from the University of California, Berkeley. Professors Kevin Healy and Dave Schaffer were the inventors of the technology and ended up co-founding the startup. We talk about Wesley’s decision making process to launch the startup, the conjugation technology and the problems it is capable of solving; customer discovery process; lessons learnt from working with partners; finding product market fit; fund raising; importance of work-life balance while building a deeptech startup, a very important topic that is generally frowned upon at startups; and programs that helped Wes grow his startup, leadership transition and many other lessons. Shownotes: - - Decision making process to launch Valiant Bio - Working with faculty at UC Berkeley to spin out a technology - Multivalent Polymer conjugation for tissue localization to develop therapeutics - Customer discovery process - Speaking with physicians, feedback from grant submissions - Noise vs signal - Dissecting "No" from potential customers/investors - Speaking with potential partners: Timing and alignment - Questions to ask potential partners - Product market fit - Funding journey - Lessons learnt from grant proposal writing - Too much data: Mistakes in the pitch deck - Focus on markets - Building a biotech startup is mostly a marathon with a few sprints - Balancing life and family: Raising twins while building the startup - Doesn't make sense to burn employees as they carry. lot of institutional/intellectual memory - Role of the board and insights into independent board members - Leadership transition - Programs that helped- ,
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/25298022
info_outline
Translating lessons learnt on diversity from academia to startups and the tech world.
11/29/2022
Translating lessons learnt on diversity from academia to startups and the tech world.
Freeman A. Hrabowski, III is the President Emeritus of UMBC (The University of Maryland, Baltimore County) who served as president from 1992 to 2022. His research and publications focus on science and math education, with special emphasis on minority participation and performance.. He was named in 2012 by President Obama to chair the President’s Advisory Commission on Educational Excellence for African Americans. In 2022, Dr. Hrabowski was elected to the National Academy of Engineering. In Addition, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) also launched the Freeman Hrabowski Scholars Program, a $1.5 billion fund to help build a diverse scientific workforce. We talk about the state of diversity in academia, the challenges, experiments and outcomes; how diversity is a hard problem; and topics like the pipeline issues, hiring, mentoring, building culture and several others, that academia has made some progress in and how the tech industry could extract lessons from the work done in academia. Shownotes - State of the union on diversity in academia and industry - Tech industry has done an abysmally bad job when it comes to diversity - Diversity is hard: - Majority of students taking STEM courses in the first two years of college do not graduate in those fields - - - Idea of Grit - It takes a long time to build a program; bring about change; small wins matter - Challenging ourselves and asking hard questions is super important to solve tough problems - Pipeline problem: Need industry to work with colleges early on by providing internships, so they can evaluate and build the pipeline - Hiring practices: Hiring people who don't look like you - Don’t treat it as a way of giving a chance- a deficit model - We need mentors and champions - One should be able to talk about weaknesses and how to address - What could tech companies do to accommodate diversity once they hire them? - Success is never final - Need for role models -- COVID vaccine - Hypothetical tool box for the tech industry - Dr. Hrabowski Bio, selected talks, publications and selected speeches: - TED talks: - Articles and case studies on Meyerhoff scholars program:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/25092912
info_outline
[REPLAY] Building the startup muscle for academic founders.
11/15/2022
[REPLAY] Building the startup muscle for academic founders.
Martin Casado is a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), a pioneer of software-defined networking, and a co-founder of Nicira Networks. We cover the lessons learnt from Martin's journey as an academic entrepreneur founding Nicira and factors that aspiring entrepreneurs planning to translate their research to products should consider. - Story of an accidental Ph.D., turned into an accidental but very successful entrepreneur - Shares how working with others during grad school helped his entrepreneurial efforts later - Titles don't mean anything- Forget titles and make sure decision makers are responsible for their decisions long term. - Enterprise version of Product market fit means you have to be piped into the product, the market and the tech trends - Discount the advice given by technology advisors who don't understand product market fit. - Academics need to understand how people (customers) do their day to day processes and their current technology before proposing their new technology. - Thoughts about timing and persistence. - Advice on how to hire executives at startups. - Picking board members. - Thoughts on exits and how founders should think about exits - Ph.D.'s can make great CEOs but remember that business problems are harder than technology problems
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/25000362
info_outline
Nucleate Bio- A collaborative student-led organization that facilitates the formation of pioneering life sciences companies
11/01/2022
Nucleate Bio- A collaborative student-led organization that facilitates the formation of pioneering life sciences companies
Anjali Ramaswami, Tobias Schmid and Miroslov Gasparek, are leaders at Nucleate Bio, a nonprofit educational organization that empowers the next generation of bio-entrepreneurs to launch successful life sciences ventures. Their program connects early-career scientists with business students and provides a structured educational framework with one-on-one mentorship that leverages their world-class network & resources. In this episode of lab to startup, we talk about the pain points this group is addressing; understand how they match co-founders, their application process; guidelines and challenges for others considering launching a chapter of this organization at their universities; and subjects like diversity, cross pollination between campuses and many others. Shownotes - - Problems that Nucleate is addressing and back story to build this organization - Matching co-founders - Lessons learnt from team formations - Genesis: Developing a venture thesis based on an idea - Application process - Clinical track program - Speech language program to teach scientists how to talk about their research without revealing any key technology - Challenges initiating local chapters - Pairing MBAs with PhDs- what works? Cross pollination between campus - Addressing diversity - Mentorship: From faculty, VCs, operators - Nucleate 2023 Activator application: - General Inquiry:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/24823833
info_outline
Activate- Empowering scientists to bring their research to market
10/16/2022
Activate- Empowering scientists to bring their research to market
Matt Price is the co-founder and President of , a program teaching scientists how to bring their research to market. He was previously the Managing Director of Cyclotron Road, and comes with experiences in the Renewable Energy space , Materials Science, and Venture Capital industry. In this episode of lab to startup, we talk about the Activate fellowship program, its origins, especially how they navigated carving out a niche but much needed space for supporting scientists to build startups. We will discuss details about the application process, challenges that the fellows generally face in this space, the support they provide, and what they actually look for in an idea or a founder trying to commercialize research. We will then find out more about the recently announced NSF fellowships for scientists and engineers in collaboration with the Activate fellowship program. Shownotes - What is Activate? - Origin story and Cyclotron Road - Business model of Activate vs incubators/accelerators - How VC funding model might not be appropriate for scientific entrepreneurs exploring technology translation - Activate fellows receive money, time and space t find out what kind of capital will help them build a company - Solving the brain drain problem - Types of industries covered - Activate fellowship: application process and selection criteria, timelines, fellowship amounts, and other benefits the program offers. - What success looks like: Economic value created; understanding market dynamics-capture value; identify the right source of capital - What they look for in an idea/founder - Scratching the intellectual itch - Activator readiness level - NSF Fellowships: - Hit milestones and receive funding from partner VCs - Delivering intimacy at scale - Apply to the program:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/24698628
info_outline
National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC)- Funding dual-use hardware startups
10/04/2022
National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC)- Funding dual-use hardware startups
Salvador Badillo-Rios, an Associate at the National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC). We talk about the origins of the National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC); funding priorities; criteria for funding; application process; and insights into best practices for applicants. Show Notes: - Website: - Building hardware is hard - A new DoD initiative that enables dual-use hardware startups - Help product development by addressing the shortfall of private investment from trusted sources. - Some of the founders were looking to China for funding innovations - Areas of interest: Autonomy, Space, Sensors, Power, Communications - Selection criteria - Rolling applications - Application and Review process - Support post funding - Intellectual Property - Tips to Apply- Focus on the why; include risk and mitigation plan - - Email: - Linkedin profile: Sub-contracting: Companies are allowed to subcontract some work since this is often needed for hardware startups (specialized manufacturing, etc). NSIC had several portfolio companies do this. However, subcontracting should not be the majority of the product development we are funding (the majority should be performed by in-house talent). NSIC looks at companies on a case-by-case basis.
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/24455010
info_outline
Market intelligence reports for startups - Arkady Hagopian
09/20/2022
Market intelligence reports for startups - Arkady Hagopian
Arkady Hagopian is an experienced professional in the market intelligence reports space both in industry and academic startup sectors. In this episode of lab to startup, we will talk about what market intelligence reports are; the building blocks of these reports; how startups could build one; mistakes to avoid; how to decide on hiring a firm if you are looking to do so. This is going to be a master class for startups on this subject Shownotes: - What are market intelligence reports? - Breakdown of a typical market report - Good reports and not so good reports - TAM, SOM, SAM - How to size markets? - Rubric for market analysis- Bottom up approach, top down approach, competitor approach - Which method to choose? - Deep dive into competitive analysis - How investors view market reports by entrepreneurs- what to do and not to do? - How founders can avoid developing tunnel vision - KISS (Keep it Simple, Stupid) - Who should indulge in market research and build market reports at startups - Market research is not exactly science! - How do truly innovative startups present future markets? - How do you pick boutique market research firms to build a report for you? - Qualifying questions for market research firms - Arkady's LNKD:
/episode/index/show/labtostartup/id/24407865