Lab to Startup

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/

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 currently testing their product under water near San Diego, California. One of the biggest surprises for me and their team is how reliable the product has been since it was installed under water last September! This speaks for the meticulous planning and engineering prowess of the team from the design phase of the product development. Shownotes: - https://calwave.energy - Wave power has about 30-60X energy compared to solar and wind. - Wave energy hasn't became mainstream commercially because of a lack of scalable solutions - Research originally performed at MIT and UC Berkeley led to technology behind Calwave Energy - Extensive simulation studies helped - Original testing was made possible by funding from NSF and Wave energy prize - Startups tend to go too big too fast and fail- find out how they avoided that mistake, mostly guided by the Wave energy prize - Productive partnerships with DoE, naval architects, oil and pipeline industry, etc., that helped learn quicker (not reinventing the wheel) - Having MBA students from Cleantech to Market program at UC Berkeley, helped avoid the general push back from potential customers - DoE determines the locations for highest wave energy in the oceans - Lessons on fund raising- Lean operations, government grants, crowd funding and competitions funded Calwave for the longest time - Shortsighted view of some investors and technology evaluators comparing wave energy to solar and wind hurts - In the US, 50% of the population lives within 50 miles of coastline, makes transmission cheaper - Lessons learnt from other renewable sources of energy generation - Careers: https://calwave.energy/careers/

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 that went on to become unicorns. This episode is going to be an M&A 101 class for startups.

Show notes: - Horizon Partners: https://horizonpartners.com; Horizon VC: https://horizon.vc - High-touch, "Artisanal M&A" model - Working with bootstrapped companies - How should startups think about M&A in their early stages- Understand negotiations? - Interests, options, criteria (Book referral: Getting to yes by Roger Fisher, William Ury, Bruce Patton) - Psychology of buyers and sellers- how they think and act - Signaling - Obvious, but never look desperate to sell - Game theory dynamics - Common mistakes that sellers make - What should a startup do when a buyer knocks at their door? - Tough and relatively easier negotiations- what was involved - How not to learn from past deals? - Role of relationships- past and present - How to pick an M&A firm? - Investment thesis at Horizon VC

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 of Tokyo. They have supported technology ventures that are pioneering frontiers to solve global issues of humankind, by bringing together capital, talent, and knowledge; around science and technology. Their latest fund, UTEC 5, raised over JPY 30 billion in 2021. They provide hands-on support from the seed/early stages in cooperation with their partners in academia in Japan and abroad. Show notes: University of Tokyo Edge Capital Partners - Founded as a VC firm because of a regulation change around universities in Japan - Startup marketing and whole product thinking - Characters they are looking for in founders - Investing in technologies that are applicable worldwide - Assessing technology risk vs market risk in deep tech startups - Segmenting customers- Finding the right maret vertical when you have multiple markets - Assessing market costs at early stages - How UTEC helps founders - Creating business plans in collaboration with founders - Difference between founders in Japan vs the US - A nice support system for early stage founders in Japan compared to the US - Areas that UTEC likes to invest - Discussion around the concept of speed for deep tech startups - Creating appropriate milestones and focus on solving specific problems rather than spreading thin solving many problems - Hiring external CEOs for deep tech startups - Contact: https://www.ut-ec.co.jp/english/contact

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, fundraising trials and tribulations; being a woman in tech; Me too movement; how to differentiate between good and bad advice; leadership transition; leadership lessons; and future goals. Show Notes: - Ayar Labs - Moore's law is going to come to an end and moving to optical technologies is inevitable - How we move data between chips hasn't evolved (over copper). So, Ayar labs came up a way to move data with light - Technology developed at MIT, UC Berkeley, Colorado University Boulder - Winning a startup competition at MIT helped spin off the startup. The underlying technology was originally funded by a $20M DARPA grant - Alex realized that this technology has the power to transform an entire semiconductor industry - Readiness of a technology is hard to evaluate - Interacting with engineers and speaking their language is important to understand how ready a technology is to hit the market - Product-market fit exercise - How to take advice and pick advisors? - Most VCs invest in software. So, focus on ones experienced in the semiconductor industry, who are more patient with capital - Patents and licensing agreements - Hard to know the reasoning for discrimination in the moment, especially as a female founder - Me too movement relly helped and it actually changed the way investors act now - Questions that investors ask differ if the founder is male vs female - Don't talk too much time about the downside risk, instead focus on the upside potential - Leadership transitions - Didn't want the VCs dictating a leadership change - Partnerships take a lot more time in the semiconductor industry - Patience is a virtue - If you are talking to a competitor, talk about results/outcomes rather than the process - No one built your startup previously. So, trust your tea, technology and gut than advice you receive