Lab to Startup

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...

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 p...

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 develo...

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 w...

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 Af...

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 acciden...

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 n...

Matt Price is the co-founder and President of Activate , 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...

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:  National Security Innovation Capital (NSIC) - Building hardware is hard - A new DoD initiative tha...

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 mas...

Xiaoxi Wei, Ph. D (CEO) and Mark Kline, Ph. D. (CTO) are the cofounders of X-Therma, a biotechnology startup developing a breakthrough technology for regenerative medicine and organ preservation. In this episode of lab to startup, we talk about the challenges around  organ preservation and transplantation; and how a technology they developed at Lawrence Berkeley National laboratory is being used t...

Regis Kelly and Doug Crawford have been instrumental in building the Bay Area life sciences startup ecosystem over the past two decades. They continue to grow this ecosystem, making it easier for aspiring founders to translate their research to products at startups. In this episode of Lab to Startup, we talk about the story behind building QB3 that started over two decades ago; the challenges they...

Alice Zheng is a Principal at RH Capital, a venture fund investing in early-stage high-impact companies across the reproductive and maternal health landscape. Alice holds an MBA from Harvard Business School and MD and MPH from the University of Michigan. Alice was previously a women's health practice leader at McKinsey & company. In this episode of lab to startup, we talk about femtech and women's...

My guest today is Rachel Haurwitz, co-founder, President and CEO of Caribou Biosciences. Caribou is a CRISPR genome editing company spun out of Jennifer Doudna's lab at the University of California, Berkeley. In this episode of lab to startup, we will talk to Rachel about how she built Caribou right after finishing her PhD in Jennifer Doudna's lab, and went all the way to taking the company public...

Karthik Balakrishnan (CEO) and Anand Kesavaraju (Chief Strategy Officer) are the co-founders of Nodexus, a Biotechnology startup that is developing scientific tools to accelerate biological workflows and make them universally accessible. Their first product is a single cell sorting and dispensing machine. In this episode of lab to startup, we talk about the problems around single cell sorting and...

Dr. Neil Ray is the Founder and CEO of Raydiant Oximetry, a medical device company that has developed a safe and non-invasive technology that directly monitors babies' oxygenation during childbirth. This prevents unnecessary C-sections for women during childbirth, while keeping the newborn safe. Neil is a clinical anaesthesiologist by training, who gave up his medical practice to build this startu...

Dr. David Kirn MD , is the co-founder and Chief Executive Officer of  4DMT , a clinical gene therapy company, and was founder and CEO of Ignite Immunotherapeutics, recently acquired by Pfizer. David is a Physician-scientist and serial biotech entrepreneur with over 25 years of experience in the industry with a focus on viral vector-based therapeutics including gene therapy and oncolytic virus canc...

My guest today is Hunter McDaniel, the founder and CEO of UbiQD, a startup exploiting quantum dots to improve agricultural yield in greenhouses and generating electricity by embedding them into windows. In this episode of Lab to startup, we talk about how non-toxic quantum dots were developed at Los Alamos; the evolution of the use cases; fundraising trials and tribulations; the complications of c...

In this episode of lab to startup, we talk to Marcus Lehmann, the Co-founder and CEO of Calwave Energy. Calwave is unlocking the power of the ocean by harvesting the dense energy packed in waves, which is about 30-60 times more dense than solar or wind! We will talk about the underlying technology development, engineering challenges, partnerships that helped them learn faster and how they are curr...

Sandy Kory is a Managing Director and co-founder of  Horizon Partners; and most recently announced a new Seed Stage Venture Capital Fund HorizonVC, where he is a General Partner.  Sandy has been advising bootstrapped technology companies for over 15 years and co-leads every client engagement. HIs approach is informed by actively investing in technology startups such as Palantir, Canva, and Zoox th...

Keis Ide is a partner at UTEC, a Japanese Venture capital firm investing in deep tech across the world. Keis focuses on innovative technologies as well as IT-enabled solutions. He spent 15 years in the US, half of which in Silicon Valley. He was awarded Forbes Japan Midas List (2017, 2020), Japan Venture Award (2021). UTEC has been working with academia in Japan and abroad including the University...

Alexandra Wright Gladstein is the founding CEO of Ayar Labs. Alex met her co-founders, Chen Sun, and Mark Wade at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where she was pursuing her MBA. We talk about the research that resulted in launching Ayar labs, the learning curve that she had trying to master the technology while being a non-technologist and successfully driving the company; licensing, fu...

Prof. Amy Herr is the Executive Director of the Bakar Bioenginuity Hub (BBH) and Prof. Regis Kelly is the Director of Bakar Labs at the University of California, Berkeley. BBH is a new campus initiative that aims to launch the startups at   Bakar Labs , a world-class incubator. The facility is open to teams from around the world — a space where anyone can leverage all that Berkeley has to offer. B...

Liam Berryman (CEO) and Lance Brockway, Ph. D. (CTO) are the co-founders of Nelumbo, a startup developing an advanced materials platform focused on improving the energy performance and minimizing corrosion challenges with heat exchangers in Air Conditioners and also mitigating icing on outdoor units and refrigeration. They are also developing water repellent material to replace PFAS in millions of...

Jalel Sager, Ph. D. (CEO), Austin Cappon (Networks & hardware), and Jonathan Lee (Senior R&D Engineer) are the co-founders of a California based startup, New Sun Road (NSR). They develop cloud-based technology systems designed to distribute energy (clean technologies), and internet connectivity issues for off-grid communities around the world. We talk about how New Sun Road originated from a class...