Out of the Lab

Yaron Daniely is a Partner & Head of aMoon Alpha and an investment leader at aMoon Velocity, an early stage investment fund that pursues dis-ruptive, cutting-edge technologies with the potential to accelerate cure. This is a fast-paced, high energy discussion from someone who has seen all sides of the ecosystem, from PhD researcher and post-doc, to entrepreneur and public company CEO, to the world of tech transfer at a top university, and who is now bridging all of the gaps in between as an investor at a fund with more than $1B AUM. 

We get into how he developed an interest in translational research, taking that to industry, developing curricula for scientists to learn about business, and how he helped to transform the tech transfer industry, including filling the proof of concept funding gap. He goes into how to identify what technologies and investigators have the highest chance of creating commercial success, how to incentivize tech transfer employees and increase the volume of licensing deals they do, and how to attract high-caliber entrepreneurs to join commercialization spinouts.

This conversation is beyond worthwhile for anyone interested in translational research, entrepreneurship, or working in the field of technology transfer. Enjoy! 

More about Yaron

Born in Israel and raised in Florida, Yaron was fascinated by science, medicine and tech-nology from a young age. Driven by a passion for discovering and creating novel solu-tions, and a persistent quest for challenging the status quo wherever he went, Yaron spent much of his career leading innovative health tech companies. He brings to aMoon a wealth of hands-on experience as a business leader in both the private and public sec-tors. In return, aMoon fulfills his craving for cutting-edge science and strategic thinking, applied to the creation and mentorship of young companies focused on impacting people’s health.

Prior to aMoon, Yaron was the President and CEO of Yissum, Hebrew University’s ac-claimed Technology Transfer Company, and Co-Chairperson of the Israel Technology Transfer Network (ITTN), where he converted academic research into practical prod-ucts and technologies. Before leading Yissum, he spent 14 years as a senior executive - and 10 years as CEO - of private and NASDAQ-traded Biopharma and Biotech compa-nies. He also co-founded and served for ten years as the director of Israel's first and leading MBA program for professionals of the local Biomedical industry at the College of Management Academic Studies.

Yaron earned his PhD from the Sackler Institute of Graduate Biomedical Sciences at the NYU School of Medicine. Following his doctoral program, he served as a Visiting Fel-low at the NIH, and as an American Cancer Society Postdoctoral Fellow in the Depart-ment of Molecular Cell Biology at The Weizmann Institute for Science in Israel. He also holds an MBA from the Technion - Israel Institute of Technology.

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Alex is the co-founder and President of Fluence Analytics, a technology startup that provides real-time analytics solutions for the optimization of manufacturing and R&D processes. His vision and leadership took the Tulane University spin-out from patented laboratory concepts to a company delivering innovative hardware and software solutions for process monitoring and optimization to chemical and biopharmaceutical manufacturers. 

I love this story because Alex, without a technical background and technology commercialization experience, was able to build this company from the ground up to where Alex is now a named inventor on several of their patents, he has led the company in raising millions of dollars, hiring dozens of employees, and is selling multiple products into different verticals around the world. He discusses everything he learned via "trial by fire" including bringing in the right expertise and mentorship, best practices in team building, working with tech transfer offices, customer development, and how to fund the early operations and R&D of a deeptech startup. Alex's journey definitely has the power to inspire more people to commercialize deeptech research. Enjoy! 

More about Alex

Prior to founding Fluence Analytics, Alex worked as the Associate Director for Operations and Strategy at PolyRMC, a Tulane university R&D center that is active in fundamental and applied polymer research. Alex is listed as an inventor on several patents and has served on the boards for the Smart Manufacturing Leadership Coalition and the Applied Polymer Technology Extension Consortium. In 2016 Forbes recognized Alex as a 30 under 30 recipient, and he has been recognized with several regional awards for entrepreneurship and innovation. Alex also regularly mentors entrepreneurs, students and faculty on the commercialization of technology, as well as entrepreneurship.

Connect with Alex on LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-reed-504/) 

More about Fluence Analytics

Fluence Analytics has raised over $13 million in equity funding from institutional venture capital (Energy Innovation Capital, Diamond Edge Ventures – strategic venture group for Mitsubishi Chemical Holdings, Yokogawa Electric Corporation and JSR). The agile company has more than 25 team members, and it has several multinational chemical and biopharmaceutical companies as customers. Additionally, Fluence Analytics’ products are now in use on three continents.

Learn more about Fluence (https://www.fluenceanalytics.com/) 

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Trevor Best is the CEO and Co-Founder of Syzygy Plasmonics, a startup pioneering a new type of chemical reactor driven by light rather than heat, enabling the potential for dramatically more efficient chemical manufacturing. Trevor and his co-founder, Dr. Suman Khatiwada, commercialized this novel photochemical tech out of Rice University. Trevor covers how he and Suman gained experience evaluating R&D while workign together at Baker Hughes, the methodology they developed to assess new technologies he calls TMI - technology / market / impact - and how to poke holes and find the big hairy problem that's going to kill your business. He covers everything from the very beginning - how they started reading journal publications looking for interesting technologies to commercialize, through their engagement with the inventors at Rice and their process in negotiating a license with the tech transfer office (TTO). Trevor goes into his past startups and why the failed and lessons learned. This convo is rife with good advice for grad-students and entrepreneurs looking to commercialize and I found it personally inspiring. With the right work ethic and the will/stamina to see things through, getting an impactful deeptech invention out of the lab and commercialized is achievable. Enjoy! 

More about Trevor

At Syzygy, Trevor has successfully raised three funding rounds. He is currently focusing on bringing Syzygy’s revolutionary photochemical technology to market. Before starting Syzygy, he worked for Baker Hughes.  There he steadily progressed into management, where he gained expertise in quality assurance (Six Sigma Black Belt), regulatory compliance, technology development management, project and personnel management, supply chain management, internal/external communications, and business process architecture.

Connect with Trevor on LinkedIn. 

More about Syzygy

Developed at Rice University by Professor Halas and Professor Nordlander, this is the world’s highest performance photocatalyst. It has been published in leading academic journals such as Science, Nature, and PNAS, to name a few. The catalyst is a platform technology and it has been demonstrated on many different chemical reactions resulting in more than a dozen publications.

Visit Syzygy's website to learn more. 

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Ayse Asatekin is an associate professor and the Steve and Kristen Remondi Faculty Fellow in the Chemical and Biological Engineering Department at Tufts University. She is an entrepreneurial academic that keeps her home base in academia, but has been a founding scientist and inventor on two university spinouts in the water sector, the most recent of which, ZwitterCo, just raised $6M to continue commercializing their technology to use zwitterions to coat membranes that are resistant to fouling and can treat waste streams with fats, oils, grease and more. 

Ayse provided a ton of insight into conducting research with an eye towards scale and commercialization, including the importance of de-risking inventions at an early stage in anticipation of what investors and industry might ask. She spoke very candidly about her past experiences in spinning out technologies, what she has learned, what she would advise young inventors considering doing the same, the importance of the team, and much more. It's an encouraging episode for any listeners that want to invent for commercialization but still remain in academia, dedicated to research. Enjoy! 

More about Ayse

Ayse Asatekin received her bachelor's degrees in chemical engineering and chemistry from the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Turkey. She went on to receive her Ph.D. in chemical engineering through the Program in Polymer Science and Technology (PPST) at MIT. She pursued her post-doctoral work with Prof. Karen K. Gleason, also at MIT. She co-founded Clean Membranes, Inc., a start-up company that commercialized the polyacrylonitrile-based membrane technology that she began developing during her doctoral research, and worked as its Principal Scientist before joining the Tufts faculty in 2012. Novel membrane technologies developed in her lab are currently being commercialized at ZwitterCo, Inc., where she serves as the Senior Scientific Advisor. She is the recipient of the NSF CAREER Award, Massachusetts Clean Energy Council's Catalyst Award, and the Turkish American Scientists and Scholars Young Scholar Award. Her research interests are in developing novel membranes for clean water and energy-efficient separations. She is also interested in multi-functional membranes, controlling surface chemistry for biomedical applications, polymer science, and energy storage. To connect with Ayse, visit https://engineering.tufts.edu/chbe/people/faculty/ayse-asatekin

More about ZwitterCo 

ZwitterCo is a national industrial membrane provider, delivering patented filtration technologies that are durable and fouling resistant. The company recently closed a $5.9m fundraising round led by Mann+Hummel Corporate Ventures, and has been recognized by the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center as a leader among clean water technologies. ZwitterCo’s cutting-edge membrane chemistry, paired with the company’s deep domain expertise, gives industrial processing facilities and their partners a pathway into the next generation of water treatment, precision separation, and resource recapture. For more information, visit https://www.zwitterco.com/.

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Ric Fulop is the Chairman, CEO and co-founder of Desktop Metal (NYSE: DM), a leader in mass production and turnkey additive manufacturing solutions. DM is changing the game in 3D printing with printers that can print a variety of metals, carbon fibers, wood composites, and more. 

The convo is short and fast-paced - Ric is a really busy guy. But its rife with a ton of advice to young entrepreneurs on how to pick a market problem to solve. Lessons learned from his previous company, A123 Systems, a battery company that also went public, yielded his repeated advice: High margins, recurring revenue, low account concentration. He also references Carlota Perez, an economist at LSE, whose work talks about technological breakthroughs and how they transition from installation to deployment phases. It's really valuable stuff. 

We also talk about how he formed A123 by licensing a technology from MIT, how he runs DM, and much more. Enjoy! 

More about Ric

Prior to founding Desktop Metal in October 2015, Ric was a General Partner at North Bridge, a VC fund with $3 billion under management, for five years following a fifteen- year career as an entrepreneur. Ric is the founder of six technology companies, including A123 Systems, Boston's largest IPO in the past decade and one of the world’s largest automotive lithium ion suppliers with revenue exceeding $500M in 2016. At North Bridge, Ric led the software and 3D investing practices and was an early stage investor and board member in Dyn (acquired by Oracle for $600 million), Onshape, MarkForged, Salsify, Lytro and Gridco. Ric is a former Board Member of the Electric Drive Transportation Association and holds an MBA from the MIT Sloan School where he was a Sloan Fellow.

More about Desktop Metal 

Founded in 2015 by leaders in advanced manufacturing, materials science, and robotics, the company is addressing the unmet challenges of speed, cost, and quality to make metal 3D printing an essential tool for engineers and manufacturers around the world. 

With solutions for every stage of the manufacturing process - from prototyping and pilot runs to mass production and aftermarket parts - we are reinventing the way engineering teams produce metal and composite parts across a wide range of applications and industries.

Learn more about DM on their website and follow Ric on Twitter. 

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Teague Egan is the founder and CEO of EnergyX, a company focused on commercializing the LiTASTM tech for lithium extraction and solid state battery electrolytes. The company was founded based on a discovery that metal organic frameworks, similar to membranes, can selectively separate monovalent ions like lithium in mixtures of high salinity. It's a spinout from the University of Texas Austin, Monash University in Australia, CSIRO (Australia's national lab) and others. Teague licensed and commercialized this technology which is the foundation of the EnergyX startup. 

This interview rocks for a few reasons. We really hear the details of how Teague decided to get involved in lithium ion exploration and extraction in the first place and how he discovered the core technology by reading an academic paper. This story is close to my heart as I had read the same paper and reached out to one of the inventors, Professor Benny Freeman, a few years ago. But Teague was the one who got on the plane, worked his butt off, and made it happen. In just a few years, Teague took a piece of research and built it into a technology company valued at $300M. He's raised money, executed collaboration agreements with leading lithium producers, and built a team of 15 people. 

His background before research commercialization is also fascinating. He invented a technology in textiles that he patented, founded and ran a record label, was the youngest certified NFL sports agent in history while studying entrepreneurship at USC, and more. 

His hustle, grit and determination are all inspiring and its exciting that his attention is now laser-focused on climate change, batteries and renewables. Enjoy! 

More about Teague: 

With a background of serial entrepreneurship, investing, inventing, and philanthropy, Teague has been investing in public sector energy assets and sustainable technologies since 2013. Prior to EnergyX, he started businesses in entertainment, music, and sports, and is also the inventor of energyDNA - a patented multi-component graphene textile fiber technology. In 2012, Teague founded Innovation Factory VC, a venture capital fund focused on tech, life sciences, real estate, space and consumer products.

Teague is actively involved in philanthropic efforts with the Thomas E. Smith Foundation. He is the co-founder of Dance For Paralysis, The Reality Ride Challenge, and The Kindness Project. Teague is a USC Trojan, and also studied exponential technology including artificial intelligence, synthetic biology, and nanotechnology at Singularity University.

Find Teague on LinkedIn.

Learn more about EnergyX on their website.

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Hamdi is the Executive Director of AVX, a non-profit cooperative exchange connecting high-value talent with early start-ups backed with research and IP from leading comprehensive research universities across the United States. AVX focuses on solving the 'talent valley of death' for deep technology ventures. Over the past 4 years, AVX has worked with over 520 proto-ventures from 33 different universities and has generated over 10,000 connections for these teams with advisors, board members, co-founders, c-level leaders, and investors who have experience helping inventors build ventures. 

This conversation is a fast-paced, deep dive into the world of technology transfer. Hamdi has seen and participated in this sector from a variety of different vantage points and has an extremely unique perspective. We talk about the team DNA of strong research-based university spinoff companies, including advice to young entrepreneurs and researchers who want to lead or join these initiatives. Hamdi is one of the most well-connected people in the space and operates at a distinctive intersection and critical stage for these young startups coming out of the lab. We talk about what tech transfer orgs (TTOs) do well, how they can improve, and also Hamdi's background as a researcher and what might be on the horizon for him. I always learn from Hamdi every time we speak and this was no exception. I highly recommend signing up for Hamdi's newsletters which aggregates an enormous amount of useful info on research commercialization from around the web including articles, insights, events and more. See past issues here and enjoy the episode! 

More about Hamdi

Prior to AVX, Hamdi completed his BA/BS in Chemical Engineering at Tufts University and his PhD at Columbia University in the lab of Dr. Ozgur Sahin. Hamdi’s research interests lie at the intersection of biology, energy, and the environment; his thesis is titled “A Theory of Renewable Energy from Natural Evaporation”. Hamdi has co-authored several papers in Nature Biotechnology and Nature Communications. During his PhD, Hamdi served as the President of the Graduate Student Advisory Council at Columbia University and worked for 6 years as a Fellow (3 years) and Senior Fellow (3 years) at Columbia Technology Ventures – the tech transfer office at Columbia University in the City of New York. Hamdi previously served as an assistant and advisor to both the BioMedX Accelerator at Columbia University and the New York City Regional Innovation Node (NYCRIN) of the National Science Foundation (NSF) i-Corps program.

Find Hamdi on LinkedIn.

Learn more about AVX on their website. 

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Carl Schoellhammer is co-founder and president of Suono Bio, a preclinical-stage company focused on the ultra-rapid delivery of novel therapeutics to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. This technology is super cool - essentially using ultrasound devices to deliver drugs through the skin. This is game-changing for people with, for instance, colitis and other inflammatory issues in their gut. We talk about the technology and its future capabilities, as well as how Carl and his partner Gio developed the invention and spun it off into a company. It's this cross-disciplinary collaboration  (Gio a gastroenterologist, Carl a chemical engineer with experience in pharma) that allowed them to solve the problem - a feature of Robert Langer's lab which is emulated in research labs around the world. 

Carl was a post-doc in Langer Lab along with Gio and he describes the process of discovering the invention and working with Bob and MIT to commercialize it. For those who don't know, Bob Langer is the most cited engineer in history. He's a modern day Thomas Edison. He's published/developed something like 800 papers, 500 patents, thousands of researchers have passed through his lab, he's spun off dozens of startup companies, 100's of licensing deals and more. It was really interesting to hear what it's like to work in Bob's lab and co-found a company with him. 

Just read this quote from Bob on the website of one of their investors, The Engine - “Suono Bio exemplifies what I’ve observed is required for a successful company: a platform technology with potentially broad utility, proof that it works in animal models, powerful patents, and publications in top-tier journals,” says Professor Langer. “The ability to deliver unformulated therapeutics with this technology is a tremendous achievement in the field of drug delivery and has potential for widespread applicability in a range of diseases. Carl is highly driven, extremely brilliant, even by MIT standards, and really wants to make a difference in the world.”

More about Carl 

Carl received his B.S. from the University of California, Berkeley in Chemical Engineering, and completed his Ph.D. and postdoctoral training in the lab of Professor Robert Langer at MIT. His work has been published in Science Translational Medicine and Gastroenterology, and has been featured by Forbes, Popular Science, CNET, and The Atlantic, among others. He was the recipient of the 2015 Lemelson-MIT National Collegiate Inventors Prize, the 2016 National Collegiate Inventors Competition top prize, and was named a Forbes 30 Under 30 in Healthcare.

Find Carl on LinkedIn and Twitter

More about Suono

Suono Bio is developing a platform technology to enable the ultrasonic, targeted delivery of drugs and macromolecules, proteins, DNA, RNA, and even the gene-editing tool CRISPR, directly to the gastrointestinal (GI) tract, their first use case. This enables them to “push” virtually any therapeutic class, including temperamental molecules, like nucleic acids, directly into cells with astounding efficacy and accuracy, affecting historically "undruggable" targets. They harness the power of ultrasound-induced cavitation to achieve this delivery and are applying it to creating new treatments for a variety of diseases, starting with inflammatory conditions.

Learn more about Suono on their website. 

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Taymur Ahmad is the Founder and CEO of actnano Inc, a technology startup developing smart coating solutions that make electronics water resistant. Taymur essentially developed actnano's technology in his kitchen. He spent 20 years in industry and thus deeply understood the problems that past attempts at making PCBs (printed circuit boards) water resistant were facing. He developed a deep foundation of knowledge in electronics manufacturing and finally had a reckoning around age 40 that caused him to leave his first career in industry and start a startup. He was shortly ordering coatings to his kitchen and running tests on them. Once he found a viable arrangement he went and recruited a PhD from MIT, raised money, and actnano was off to the races. 

This episode is full of great nuggets of wisdom for grad-students and entrepreneurs on the importance of involving experienced industry veterans early on in order to help go to the customer, develop the business side of things and understand more about the problem. He talks about how to approach customers, what to keep close to the vest, and much more. Enjoy! 

More about Taymur

Prior to founding actnano, Mr. Ahmad had 18 years of manufacturing management experience with Fortune 50 companies such as Alcoa and Philips Electronics. Among other accolades, in 2010 he was awarded the “Visionary of the Year” award by Surface Mount Technology magazine. Mr. Ahmad’s success stories have been featured in various magazines and newspapers including USA Today. Dell’s Center for Entrepreneurs picked Mr. Ahmad to be one of the top 50 CEOs in the world. He is a member of the Dell founders 50 club and the Philips Alumni Club. Mr. Ahmad speaks 5 languages and has lived in Europe and Asia. He earned his MBA from Business School Lausanne in Switzerland, and his Engineering degree from the University of Iowa.

Find Taymur on LinkedIn 

More about actnano

actnano is a revolutionary nanotechnology company that enables the protection of a variety of materials from water damage and harsh environmental conditions. Specializing in automotive and consumer electronics, our thin-film coatings, called Advanced nanoGUARD can be applied to the full PCBA including connectors and provide up to IPx8 protection levels. Solutions can be integrated easily into existing manufacturing lines by our expert, regional engineering teams.

Visit the actnano website to learn more. 

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Livio Valenti is the co-founder of Vaxess Technologies, a startup that developed MIMIX, a smart-release therapeutic patch that, after only minutes of wear-time, can release treatments into the skin at precise rates for up to months after the initial application. 

The origin story of the formation of Vaxess is incredible. Livio had been working for the United Nations in Cambodia, helping rice farmers convert their fields to silk so they could sell a higher value product. After seeing Professor Omenetto's TED talk (linked below) on the technological opportunities in silk, coupling that with Livio's knowledge on the challenges of drug and vaccine delivery in the developing world, and that he happened to start a degree at Harvard just a short drive from Tufts where the inventors Professors Kaplan and Omenetto had their lab, the seeds of Vaxess were born. 

Listen to hear more on how he discovered the technology, courted and brainstormed with Professor Omenetto, and how the Gates Foundation pushed them to think about their technology in new directions. He gives advice on looking for opportunities when you're in university, building long-term relationships with collaborators, the value of small business plan competitions, how to leverage non-dilutive funding, and much more. 

More about MIMIX: 

The same biology that allows MIMIX to activate the immune system against infectious diseases like influenza can also be used to activate the immune system against cancer cells. When a MIMIX patch loaded with a chemo agent is applied to certain tumors, for example, it kickstarts a natural immune response, eventually eliminating metastases throughout the body.

The technology behind MIMIX’s smart-release functionality is not a synthetic preservative or a complex drug-delivery device. It’s natural, water-soluble, and inexpensive—silk. It works like this: after a brief application, the patch is removed, leaving behind the tips of the medicine-filled microneedles painlessly within the patient. At once delicate and resilient, the microneedles dissolve at a precise rate, releasing medicine at its most effective dose and for the most effective length of time.

Courtesy of The Engine

Here's a link to Professor Omenetto's TED talk on the powers of silk. 

Find Livio on LinkedIn and visit the Vaxess website to learn more. 

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