The Founders Playbook

Early detection of cancer saves lives, but the tests that catch it are often invasive, expensive and out of reach for the people who need them most. Kevin Saruni Tipatet is trying to change that. His company, VibraSpex, is developing a laser-based technology, powered by machine learning, that reads the subtle signals of early cancer in biofluids like blood.

This episode follows Kevin from a childhood in Kenya, through a bioengineering education in Germany, to a cancer pathology lab in Scotland where the problem became personal. He is honest about the parts founders rarely discuss: the trade-off between publishing a paper and protecting your IP, the family member who told him he was crazy, and the slow, liturgical grind of grant funding.

It is a grounded conversation about building medtech the hard way, and why the questions you ask matter more than the speed of your answers. Essential listening for any academic weighing up the leap from research to company.

Key Topics:

• How to decide what to publish and what to protect when your research is also your IP
• Why a US non-provisional patent, and its one-year grace period, can rescue an invention already made public in the UK
• How to turn a published paper into your first customer conversations and key opinion leaders
• What a good VC actually brings beyond money, and why shared vision beats a bigger cheque
• How to keep a medtech company alive on grants, awards and personal funds while the runway counts down
• Why non-believers can be as useful as believers when you are building something unconventional
• How to spot real growth when it is buried in the noise of daily activity

The energy transition runs on critical minerals, and right now there are not enough of them. The blocker is time. The average critical minerals project takes 18 years to go from first drill to operational mine, and Luke Cullen, founder of Material Difference, thinks that has to change.

A former mining industry professional turned Cambridge researcher, Luke developed a method for reducing uncertainty in what lies underground using far less data. In the company’s first industry pilots, that meant roughly 50 per cent less drilling. In 18 months he has gone from postdoc to founder: joining Entrepreneur First, meeting his co-founder Gabriel Yoong, running four pilots, signing a first commercial agreement, and pitching nearly 200 VCs from a base in San Francisco.

This is an honest account of the gap between technology and product, why rejection is information, and why the standard Silicon Valley playbook only half applies to deep tech.

Key Topics

• Why people don’t buy technology, they buy products, and how a researcher learns the difference
• How pure cold outreach on LinkedIn found Material Difference its first pilot customers, and the honest framing that made it work
• What talking to nearly 200 VCs teaches you about rejection, resilience and updating your assumptions
• Why Luke and Gabriel based their fundraising in San Francisco, and what UK founders can take from it
• How to hire for skills against concrete milestones rather than job titles, and why the 996 mentality fails deep tech founders
• How Luke’s first pilots cut the drilling needed to build confidence in a resource by around 50 per cent

What if a robot could give a surgeon steadier hands for the movements too small to see or feel? That question, asked during Daniel Bautista's PhD at Imperial College London, became Symmetry Surgical.

Current surgery depends heavily on a surgeon's mechanical skill, and tiny differences in speed or angle change how a patient hears, sees and recovers. Daniel's team is building a compact robotic platform that extends the surgeon without disrupting the operation, starting with cochlear implant surgery and preserving the hearing patients have left.

This episode follows the six-to-seven-year journey from lab to launch: negotiating an exclusive IP licence with the university, getting from controlled experiments to a product a surgeon can use on a cadaveric specimen, surviving the cycle of nearly running out of money, and collecting investor nos on purpose to improve faster. An honest conversation about building hard tech in a world you are not allowed to break.

Keu topics

• The problem nobody can see: micro-movements in surgery that surgeons cannot see or feel, and how one degree or a slower speed changes patient outcomes
• • Making the investor case: reducing surgical risk and widening patient eligibility, using cochlear implants as the first indication
• Patents across geographies: filing in the UK and Europe first, then a PCT, then deciding which markets to enter
• Finding the customer: selling to hospitals and clinics, and reaching procurement through surgeons
• Funding MedTech: an NIHR grant, talking to investors early, and the near-constant cycle of running low on money
• The road ahead: spin-out, first private raise, and a national preclinical study putting the technology in surgeons' hands

What if a brain implant could do its job and then dissolve? That is the question Maria Cerezo-Sanchez asked during her PhD at the University of Glasgow, and it became the foundation for Neurobite Technologies.

Current neural implants are made of rigid electronics, essentially a sewing needle left inside a jelly-like organ. The brain fights back with inflammation and scar tissue, degrading the implant’s ability to record and stimulate activity. Maria’s team is developing flexible, dissolvable devices that work with the brain rather than against it, targeting drug-resistant epilepsy and stroke recovery.

This episode follows Maria from setting up a biology lab in an electronics department where nobody wanted to play with cells, through IP negotiations that took two years, to building a team of four on grant funding and preparing for her first private raise. An honest conversation about the gap between academic innovation and the regulated reality of getting an implantable medical device into a human brain.

Key Topics Covered

• Why current brain implants fail: rigid electronics, inflammation, and the scar tissue problem

• From flexible to dissolvable: adding layers of complexity to solve a harder problem

• IP strategy for PhD students: publication versus patents, and why it took two years to negotiate

• Navigating regulation across the UK, EU, and US — and why geopolitics now matters to founders

• The co-founder relationship: switching from PhD supervisor to equal partner

• Fundraising as a full-time job: preparing for a first private raise in 2026

• Why you don’t have to be a stereotypical CEO to lead a company

Jason Norman is not the kind of founder who set out to build a company. Two years after finishing a PhD in liquid crystal lasers, he was in the right room at the right moment when his supervisor's decade-long work on flexible pressure sensors needed someone to take it to market. That opportunistic leap has become FlexiSense, a company developing low-cost wearable pressure sensors that could transform how the NHS treats chronic wounds.

The problem FlexiSense is solving sounds almost too simple: compression therapy - wrapping a bandage around a leg to treat venous ulcers - is done entirely by feel. There is no measurement, no feedback, no right dose confirmed. Too much pressure and patients can lose a limb; too little and the wound never heals. The NHS is spending roughly £2 billion a year on wound care, with a small minority of chronic patients driving most of that cost. Jason's sensor goes under the bandage and tells clinicians exactly what is happening, quality assurance for a treatment that, right now, is pure guesswork.

This conversation is about the part of the spin-out journey that nobody packages into a framework.

Jason talks about discovering his real market by walking into NHS clinics and following what nurses complain about when they think no one is listening. He reflects on the difference between advice from people who have done it and advice from people who talk about it. And he shares what he would do differently put something physical in people's hands earlier, and be more honest with his team when things are not going well. It is a conversation for anyone at the early, uncertain stage of a hard tech company who wants to know what this actually looks and feels like from the inside.

Why can’t most life science researchers access the advanced microscopy tools that already exist? The technology is there. It has been for decades. But it’s too expensive, too complicated, and built for the wrong people.

Dr. Peter Tinning, an optical physicist at the University of Strathclyde, spent years embedded in life science labs and watched researchers revert to hundred-year-old methods the moment he left. That observation became the foundation for Northern Light Microscopy - a company developing modular, low-cost super-resolution imaging hardware that works within existing laboratory workflows.

This episode follows Peter’s journey from postdoc to founder: 140 customer interviews across three continents during the Innovate UK ICURe programme, spinning out from a university with IP negotiations in real time, assembling a team of four with founders’ funds and grant money, and preparing to raise a pre-seed round of £850,000 while the runway counts down. An honest account of building hard tech in the UK.

Key Topics Covered

• Why optical physicists have been building microscopes for other physicists — and why that’s a problem for life science research
• The ICURe programme: what 140 customer conversations across three continents actually revealed
• Building a modular product platform that responds to market feedback rather than assumptions
• The funding patchwork: Innovate UK grants, university commercialisation funds, convertible loan notes, and founders’ own cash
• Why the Silicon Valley playbook fails for UK deep tech — and what to do instead
• Approaching investors early, before you’re ready, and building those relationships over time
• The emotional weight of leading a team: salaries, responsibility, and learning to put your foot down
• Getting to market: trade shows, early adopters, UKCA/CE marking, and converting interest into revenue

Guest Bio

Peter Tinning is the co-founder and CEO of Northern Light Microscopy, a hard tech startup developing modular, accessible super-resolution imaging systems for life science research.

An optical physicist by training, Peter has been at the University of Strathclyde since 2009, where he completed his undergraduate, master's, and PhD, and then worked as a postdoc embedded in life science laboratories.

He co-founded Northern Light Microscopy with Ralph Bauer, a senior lecturer in electronic and electrical engineering at Strathclyde. The company spun out of the university following the Innovate UK ICURe programme and is supported by Innovate UK grant funding, Strathclyde commercialisation funds, and a university convertible loan note.

Peter is a Royal Academy of Engineering Enterprise Fellow.

The company is currently preparing for its first commercial product deployments with early-adopting customers and raising a £850,000 pre-seed round.

Website: www.northernlightmicroscopy.com

LinkedIn (Personal): Peter Tinning

LinkedIn (Company): Northern Light Microscopy

What if the solution to plastic pollution was already swimming in the ocean? Lucy Hughes asked this question as a design student, and it led her from a Sussex fish processing plant to winning the international James Dyson Award.

MarinaTex is developing home compostable materials from seafood waste and algae that biodegrade in under six weeks—stronger than the plastic they replace. The company started in Lucy's kitchen during COVID and is now preparing for commercial launch.

This episode is an honest conversation about building hard tech as a solo founder. Lucy shares why the Silicon Valley playbook fails for deep tech, how she built her network when she couldn't meet anyone in person, the real cost of hiring your first employee, and why knowing your weaknesses might be the greatest strength a founder can have.

4. Key Topics Covered

• Why "move fast and break things" does not work for food-contact hard tech

• Building a network from scratch during COVID lockdowns

• The emotional weight of hiring your first employee and paying someone else's rent

• IP strategy in the age of AI: patents, trade secrets, and protecting formulations

Lucy Hughes is the founder of MarinaTex, a biomaterials company developing home-compostable alternatives to plastic film from seafood waste and algae. A diver-turned-designer-turned-entrepreneur, she created the first MarinaTex prototype in her kitchen as a final-year project at the University of Sussex. In 2019, she won both the UK National and International James Dyson Award. The company has since won the 2021 Index Project Award and 2023 National Maritime SME Disruptor of the Year, and has been featured in the BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, and the World Economic Forum. MarinaTex is based in Brighton and is preparing for a commercial product launch.

Contact Information

Website: https://www.marinatex.co.uk/

LinkedIn (Company): Marinatex

LinkedIn (Personal): Lucy Hughes

When 90% of people say they would prefer a painless patch to a needle, why has no one brought one to market? Everyone assumed it was a science problem. Henry Dunne discovered it was not.

Through intensive customer discovery, Henry and his co-founder learned that microneedle technology works. The patents exist. The science is proven. But previous companies focused on perfecting the patch while ignoring a fundamental barrier: manufacturing cost. When your product costs ten to twenty times more than the needle it replaces, there is no market.

This episode is a masterclass in solving the right problem. Henry shares how getting out of the lab and talking to pharmaceutical companies revealed what academics had missed for decades. He discusses building IP strategy as a student founder, navigating the funding gap in life sciences, and why celebrating small wins keeps founders going through the hard seasons.

Henry Dunne - https://www.linkedin.com/in/henry-james-dunne/

Microneedle Solutions (MNS) - www.microneedlesolutions.com

What happens when the market for your technology disappears before you finish developing it? Adrian Pugsley faced exactly this challenge when solar water heating was overtaken by photovoltaics, leaving his PhD research without a clear application.

In this episode, Adrian shares how he pivoted thermal diode technology into switchable insulation, a solution to the growing crisis of overheating in modern buildings. He discusses the reality of spinning out from Ulster University, navigating IP negotiations, and the catch-22 of raising investment for deep tech: investors want trials on real buildings, but trials need investment.

An honest conversation about the funding gap that deep tech founders face, and what keeps a founder going when the runway is running out.

What if you could build a space company without venture capital? Sara Alao is proving it is possible. Her company, Stars Edge, is developing satellites that can fly lower than anyone has flown before, delivering better connectivity and resolution for everything from disaster relief to financial services.

In this episode, Sara shares her unconventional path from aerospace engineering to acting to mental health work, and how each experience taught her something essential about understanding people. She explains why she chose to do a PhD as a safety net while building the company, how she assembled a volunteer team aligned with her vision, and why she has learned to stop waiting around for investors.