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 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 - Commercial Acceleration Opportunity (CAO) - Email: [email protected] - Linkedin profile:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/salvador-badillo-rios/

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.

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:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/arkadyh/

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 to increase the life of organs to up to a week.We will talk about the inspiration to launch the startup, unique success around raising non-dilutive funding; creating a culture, and the importance of freedom to take decisions not driven by investors; Last but not the least, we will also get into their personal life briefly, as Xaoxi and Mark are unique co-founders on that front. Show notes - https://x-therma.com - Peptoid research originally developed for a DARPA project formed the basis for the underlying technology - Biomimicking chemistry in nature (fishes) to overcome freezing problems - Solid organ transplant still very inefficient due to limited amount of time to transport and transplant an organ - Product evolution - Determining the first product to develop, timing and timelines - SBIR grants and VC funding - Building the startup as an outsider (non-cryobiology experts) & role of KOLs - Turning down term sheets - The power of freedom while building startups by taking in the right money - Challenges in the organ preservation space - X-Therma assisting cell and gene therapy. - FDA Breakthrough device status - Culture and lessons learnt from hiring - Being partners at work and at home - Careers: https://x-therma.com/join-us/

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 had to overcome; the evolution of academia and biotech startups from 1970’s to the current day; macroeconomic conditions that are shaping the funding and growth of this sector; government policies; lessons learnt from the Massachusetts biotech ecosystem; evolution of new research centers like the Arc Institute, Altos and others; and finally discuss ways to move more technologies out of academia to benefit the society. Shownotes: - Story of how Reg and Doug started working together - Story of how QB3 was built - Story of not believing in productizing university research to becoming champions of building startups - Concerns about curiosity driven research vs translational research - Herb Boyer and Bob Swanson founding Genentech - Changing markets and influence on biotech - Conversations around alternative research institutions like Altos Labs and Arcadia - Progress of academic entrepreneurship - You need public support to build startup ecosystems, especially in the biotech space - Credit card is a sufficient source of capital to start a biotech startup - Better interface between academia and business -  Ideas to getting technologies out of academic labs - Ways big pharma and biotech are working with startups - Need for looking beyond cancer - Workforce development to support biotech startup ecosystems - Lack of role models - Lessons learnt from Massachusetts biotech ecosystem - Addressing the lack of diversity in the botech space - Flexible space has been hugely beneficial in building biotech startups - Academic vs non-academic leaders leading startups ecosystems

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 health which is gathering some momentum of late; investment thesis of RH Capital and ways they work with founders; opportunities and challenges in this space; and also try to cover some topics that can help encourage aspiring female founders and investors not yet in this space. Shownotes: - https://rhiaventures.org/rhcapital/ - RH Capital, a Rhia Ventures fund, invests in early-stage high-impact companies that are driving innovation, access, and equity across the reproductive and maternal health landscape - Femtech/Women's health - Huge white spaces for investments into women's health - Networking for aspiring female founders - How other VCs can invest in this space - Making a business case for women's health - Areas ripe for investments - Roe v Wade: How innovation ecosystem can help the consequences - Hot off the press article written by Alice in HBS healthcare blog: https://www.hbs.edu/healthcare/blog/post/doubling-down-on-womens-health-innovation-and-leveraging-the-private-sector-in-a-post-roe-v-wade-era -- A few articles Alice co-authored while at McKinsey on women's health needs and innovation trends: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/the-dawn-of-the-femtech-revolution https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/healthcare-systems-and-services/our-insights/unlocking-opportunities-in-womens-healthcare

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 last year in the midst of a pandemic. We will talk about how she took a very nascent idea of CRISPR, built a team, raised funds, built collaborations with big companies; and built this very successful company that has recently reported phase I clinical study results. Shownotes - Caribou Biosciences - Rachel founded Caribou Biosciences right out of grad school, as Jennifer Doudna's first graduate student working on CRISPR - chRDNA technology enhances the specificity of gene editing and at multiple locations - Targeting cancers- both liquid and solid tumors - Autologous CAR T cell therapy is hard to scale - Caribou is working on off the shelf cell therapies- Allogeneic CAR T therapy - Massive pivot as an organization- started as a pure platform technology company to help other companies - Found real opportunity to help patients directly by developing therapeutics - chRDNA has provided several orders of improvement in specificity- no off target effects observed within the limits of detection - Phase I clinical trial ANTLER : https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT04637763?term=cb-010&draw=2&rank=1 - The most important ingredient in building is not technology- it is team! - The first ten hires are the most terrifying hires for any startup - Analysis paralysis - Incoming interest in technology and money came from Dupont Pioneer and Novartis - Raise more money than you need! - Building the team and role played by Jennifer Doudna -  Lessons learnt from building and serving on boards - Job opportunities

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 the solution they have come up with; the evolution of technology, challenges and advantages of growing a lean operation; identifying markets, mentors, and investors; and some of the lessons learnt building a scientific tools company.

Show notes: - https://nodexus.com - Biotechnology company that commercializes tools to accelerate biological workflows and make them universally accessible. - Benchtop single cell sorting and dispensing - People who built something previously are a good fit to recruit - Some of the programs that helped: Berkeley SkyDeck, StartX, QB3, NSF I-Corps - Targeting right partners, investors is super important - How to convince people to use innovative products - Feature based on customer feedback - Being a part of incubators/accelerators gives a network around you to share and learn from problems that others are going through - Careers: https://boards.greenhouse.io/nodexusinc

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 startup. We talk about the underlying technology, the challenges Nail had to face while transitioning to the role of a founder; naive assumptions he made; innovation in women’s health; Interactions with investors and fundraising; challenges that entrepreneurs in the medical device space face trying to get pilots at hospitals; go to market strategy and lessons he learnt being a physician entrepreneur. Shownotes: - https://www.raydiantoximetry.com - Raydiant Oximetry uses the principles of pulse oximetry to measure fetal oxygen levels - Uses light to measure the differences in the color of oxygenated vs deoxygenated blood - Built the solution based on his experience being a clinical anaesthesiologist - Very little innovation in women's healthcare - Naively (at the beginning) focused on the patients rather than thinking about the market size - Concept of market size is not hard. It just needs to be taught - Realize that selling is a big part of becoming an entrepreneur (always selling) - Making decisions with incomplete information - Colleagues were not too supportive during the transition to becoming an entrepreneur - Giving up a full time paying job as a doctor and becoming a founder is hard - Breaking down silos in medical practices and bringing other experts to the table - Investors want to see how you're putting your skin in the game before they invest- Neil gave up his job and invested from his savings to build the prototype! - Lessons learnt from interacting with investors as a physician - Angel MD, MD Angels, Mass Medical Angels, D Capital, Avestria Ventures, etc. - CITRIS Foundry helped tell a good story that helped them get into Fogarty Institute - 90% of the companies from Fogarty institute have been successful - Network effects at play - Working with hospitals to test prototypes is hard- Need a champion - Work on something transformative- not on incremental innovations - Sales cycle of medical devices are long at hospitals- need big, established players - As a small player, focus on clinical data and find someone else to sell - NSF I-Corps helped identify/understand stakeholders - It's easy to get into echo chambers. You need to become intellectually honest - Investors tend to say that there is no need for a product like this, but those in the space realize how important the innovation was. - Advice to physicians planning to launch a startup

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 cancer immunotherapy, and is also a Professor at UC Berkeley actively teaching and mentoring students in biotech entrepreneurship. We talk about acquisition models in the pharma and biotech industries; the origins of the idea behind Ignite, how the relationship with Pfizer was initiated in a novel “Build to buy” model; details of how the relation worked; benefits of working with big pharma, and how startups should think about such relationships. Show notes: 1. Business models for biotech companies 2. Oncolytic viruses to attack tumors and stimulate patient specific immune response 3. 100 year old technology to use viruses to lyse cancer cells 4. Onyx pharmaceuticals and use of Adenoviruses 5. Viruses didn't evolve enough to destroy cancer cells completely 6. Traditional nude mice not good enough for predicting behaviour in humans 7. PDX or mouse tumor models with intact immune systems slightly better- not one mode is good enough 8. Viruses good for oncolytic capabilities: Large transgene carrying capacity 9. Systemic delivery is important 10. Financing biotech startups- strengths and weaknesses 11. Pharma partnerships: Things to consider and how Ignite arrived at agreement to work with Pfizer (https://www.fiercepharma.com/vaccines/pfizer-backs-cancer-vaccine-startup-ignite-immunotherapy) 12. Terms of the business agreement 13. The role that Pfizer played in the relationship, and the acquisition 14. Track record and connections help with partnerships 15. Way to think about fundraising, success, resources in biotech startups 16. Mistakes to avoid and lessons learnt from partnering with big pharma/biotech

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 convincing multiple stakeholders in the solar space; and how Hunter’s grit and persistence helped in building this startup. Show Notes: - UbiQD: https://ubiqd.com - Using quantum dots to modify sunlight to enhance photosynthetic efficiency and boost fruit and flower production - Help plants get more from the sun in a greenhouse and boost crop yields and quality without the cost or energy impact of lighting - UbiQD solar windows are made from glass laminated with a quantum dot doped interlayer to generate electricity - Translated research during his postdoc at Los Alamos national labs to products at his startup - Licensed some technology from MIT and the rest from Los Alamos - Technology evolved from trying to solve the problem of toxicity from cadmium and lead in quantum dots - Swapped Cadmium with Indium and Copper - Once the toxicity problem was solved, the hope was that companies would line up for the new solution - Initially funded by NSF SBIR grant (10th attempt) - While generating electricity from windows was funded, NSF I-Corp program helped find the greenhouse market - Increases crop yield by 10-30%; 6 Watts/sq.foot while maintaining transparency of windows (half of traditional solar cells) - https://ubigro.com - Understand all the people that had to be convinced to adopt the products - Ask for advice and you get money - Investors: Breakout labs, Scout Ventures, Keiretsu Forum, Sun Mountain Capital, Epic Ventures, Plug and Play Ventures, Arcview Collective Fund, Nanosys. - Relations with Nanosys, NASA, SpaceX, US Air Force - Contact: https://ubiqd.com/contact/