 Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, wherever you may be around the world. Thank you for joining us today for this special Global Entrepreneurship Week edition of Just Tech Connect, our quarterly science and tech webinar. My name is Gene Aguishrao and I am the Chief Information Officer at the Bureau of Industry and Security within the US Department of Commerce. I am a technology expert with more than 20 plus years of experience in the public, private and non-profit sectors, although I think my esteemed panel beats me big time because looking at their backgrounds and bios, they are truly amazing folks and I think you will all walk away and awe at the end of this program. I'll be the moderator for today's discussion and the topics such as quantum computing, synthetic biology, photonics, artificial intelligence, these are just a few of the emerging fields that are leading the way and exploring that what we call deep tech. As someone who has played in that space before in a prior life with the clean energy startup and whatnot, it is definitely coming down to the pipeline of the next-gen technology and I just want you to understand that this is a phenomenal conversation that you all get to be part of today. The characteristics of deep tech include long research periods followed by difficult commercialization periods AKA the technology valley of death. However, products that come out of deep tech companies have the potential to dramatically disrupt existing sectors or create whole new ones and their impacts will be huge. I can definitely attest to that. And so, sorry, which is also why innovating in the space can be so rewarding today. We will be discussing this exciting field and taking your questions which will be answered by our steam group panels. Speaking of our panel, let's begin by welcoming our experts today. Nakia Melissio is a seasoned entrepreneur and faculty member from Georgia Institute of Technology and has worked with more than 700 entrepreneurs and tech as a teacher and a business advisor and was just talking to us before the start of the program about his recent work with the I-Corps program as Department of Energy. So I'm very excited to hear what he's been seeing from that perspective there. Andra K is the managing director of Silicon Valley Robotics, the nonprofit industry group supporting innovation and commercialization of robotics technology. She's a global ecosystem builder, a futurist and a founder of the Good Robot Awards. Robot launched global startup competition, robot garden makers space and women in robotics. That's pretty cool. And there's a robot, special guest robot behind her. So you may hear the robot beep or stalker try to outdo R2-D2 in one way or another. So I'll be fun to see. And finally, we have last but not least, Neatley, who has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Go Badgers, is an accelerator associate at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, Worf, which for those who may be familiar with that, that's a pretty big deal. And managing director of a Singapore based family fund focused on the tech startups and BC fund investments. So thank you all for joining us today. We really want to know your thoughts and take your questions during the program. So please ask your questions in the chat space next to the video player. I also would like to acknowledge today's co-host, just innovation hub, FabLab, Mindanao at the Mindanao State University Illigan, sorry, University Illigan Institute of Technology. FabLab, Mindanao is Mindanao's first digital fabrication laboratory, is exactly places like these where amazing tech is born. And we're excited to have them co-hosting today's show. So let's start with our first question. What are some good examples of commercialized D-Tech that people might not know is actually D-Tech? Nikia, could you go first, please? Yeah, yeah, that's a good question. Thank you. And it's exciting. I love these conversations to really talk about D-Tech as it's truly one of those things that's at the forefront of a lot of people's mind. But when I think about some of the things that we don't think about as D-Tech, one of the things, something that's simple, right? I just got my iPhone 13 and Siri has made quantum leaps from the first time that Siri came out to now and Siri came out of DARPA, right? Came out of a research lab and it had another adjacent application, another pathway for it. And now it's making all of our lives better while listening to us in the background and constantly running and making suggestions to improve the productivity of everything that we do. So Siri is one of those examples that when we think about, it starts something that starts out in D-Tech, but then it filtrates into just everyday society. So Siri is one of those examples. Thank you, that's great. To the other panels, Andra, Naye, your thoughts to follow on that? Well, Nikia kind of stole what I was gonna mention. Unlike robots, AI is being a fantastic source of deep tech commercialized products and yet it tends to be invisible. And so for example, Siri was commercialized at SRI International just down the road where the internet was also developed and shaky the world's first mobile robot back in the 70s. But along the way, we have online search, we have speech assistance, our Netflix recommendations. These are all built on large-scale language models and deep learning. Right. Naye, your thoughts too? Yeah, you know, if you have a Samsung quantum phone, that the thing that makes it a quantum phone is this quantum-based cryptography chip and that came out of a university in Geneva and is commercialized by a company called ID Quantique, but you don't really think about that. You think, oh, that's engineering. It might or might not count as deep tech. It's designed, might or might not count as deep tech, but there's so much that goes into all the individual products and services that we use that are deep tech and people don't really think about it. So I'd like to throw something. I'm gonna do a little bit of an audible, but I think it's relevant. Right. We're talking about foundational technologies that are coming out of these emerging startups, technologies, right? Right. These are next-gen infrastructure plays. And so I'm curious about the catalytical plays that need to happen because Nikia, government university industry partnership line, right? You're familiar with the SBIR program, which I used to oversee when I was at SBA a few years back before I did my career pivot. Curious to hear your perspective on that catalytical plays that have to happen between government university industry, because I think a lot of people don't realize that trifecta, that triple helix plays a huge role in these hard, deep tech, long-term, billion-dollar capital plays. Yeah, it's so important. And I absolutely love the SBIR program. When you think about all the innovations, like for instance, 23andMe was a recipient of an SBIR and all of the good work that they're doing there. And what makes the SBIR program such an important process, right? Cause we're literally at that age where science fact is actually science reality, right? All this deep science is like, it's really here. All this science fiction stuff that we think about and we watch on TV and sci-fi channel. I mean, and then the look at the reality of these researchers that are actually doing some really amazing things. And oftentimes, the traditional funding mechanisms don't afford them the opportunity because there's such a long runway, right? And I love the SBIR program because it gives them the opportunity to de-risk a lot of the technology very early on and really do a scope and scan, right? And then couple that with like an I-Corps program where they get the opportunity to do deeper dives into like the customer discovery aspect of it to really understand, you know, is this something that's just a nice to have? Is it a must have? And so some of this early on investment dollars, which is important when we think about the global race on innovation and how do we, because we're so interconnected, right? And I think that COVID has been one of those things that has showed us how interconnected we are and how technology help keep the fabric of how we operate and function and move. And so SBIR programs and research programs, research dollars help aid in that process and it really creates new markets, new industries. And it gives scientists and researchers and engineers an opportunity to really think about really pushing the limits beyond this capacity and to think about how do we create new novel technologies and really take that world of science fiction into reality and SBIR programs and STTR programs and PFI and all these programs that are geared towards the researcher to basically give them a sandbox to play in, right? And there's some really, while the runway is long, but there's some really cool novel tools that come out of that. So, and I wanna get the perspective of our panelists but just as our audience, because it is a global audience, the SBIR program, the America Seed Fund which is about a $4 billion non-dilutive fund from the federal government in the form of R&D dollars contracts and grants to small businesses and startups. It is an American-based program, right? So, American-based small businesses can apply. But a lot of the countries around the world have been trying to emulate and mimic that program. A good example of that is the EU's Horizon 2020. So, you know, Andre and I, before I kick into our dialogue a little bit further, I just wanna hear your thoughts about that program, but in general, the role of de-risking high-risk technology, right? Because SBIR plays a huge role, not only in catalyzing, but de-risking that technology so that the private market will actually say, well, I'm interested in that. And I, you know, biotech, the biotech fueling of biotech industries around the US is in part because of the NIH SBIR program. So, I'm just kind of curious about your two cents on that. Yeah. Well, firstly, I have seen the model that the US kind of generated being picked up and copied around the world. People wanna make sure that they're following the best practices when it comes to their, well, governments wanna make sure they're following best practices when it comes to their investment and their innovation support. And I've seen that change significantly. One of the reasons we know this is very useful is the non-dilutive funding that extends the runway for startups significantly while they're, you know, as you mentioned before, they take longer to come to market. They take longer to mature than what we've seen in the last 20 years as startups generally. But another really important use of the funding like the SBIRs is to create a roadmap, a technology roadmap that validates where something is coming from when it's been identified by government experts, scientific experts as being the next important steps forward that really helps investors with the diligence that they, it helps them understand where there are real, where there's something really there. For those of you just joining us today, we are talking today about how the future of innovation is deep tech. If you have questions for the panelists, just drop them into the chat below the video window. So here's the next question and nay, this is gonna be directed at you first. Let's talk about some of the differences between deep tech startups and standard startups. How is building a deep tech startup different from your traditional, typical Silicon Valley app startup? Or some of the silly stuff that we've seen pop up. I think deep tech is definitely a bigger and different beast altogether than the most folks realize. Yeah, absolutely. I think it goes back to some of the things that we've already discussed. But let's just start with a difference between what is a deep tech startup versus what is a tech enabled startup? So for my definition, a deep tech startup is really something built on, heavy foundational research and innovation. It taps into emerging and disruptive technologies. What you use is a term of foundational technologies. While tech startups are, they do use technologies but these technologies tend to be existing technologies and then the novel innovation is tied around business models and implementation. So there's a really clear distinction between what is deep tech and what is tech enabled. So for a deep tech company, what does that mean? How are you building a deep tech company and what does that mean? I think one thing I wanna focus on is this idea of intellectual property and this foundational, highly disruptive research that enables a deep tech company to begin with. We've already mentioned this idea of really long research and development runways. Those tend to be really expensive. And in the case that you have a startup that is doing something highly, highly risky, doing technologies that are disruptive, disruptive being that it might be the science is disruptive, that you might be pushing the boundaries and limits of physics and chemistry and biology, but you also might be in a point where the market's not ready yet. So for example, going back to an example I gave earlier which is ID Quantique. ID Quantique started about 20 years ago and at the time when they first started, they came out of a university in Geneva doing quantum-based cryptography. At 20 years ago, you could add a letter, a number, a capital letter and an exclamation mark and it'd be really difficult for somebody to hack your password. That's not the case anymore. And so something like a quantum cryptography chip 20 years ago didn't have very much utility so they heavily relied on sources of funding that are outside of venture capital or traditional investor funding which is going back to, even in 20 years ago, there was a significant amount of non-dilutive grant funding that they relied on and I think a lot of companies typically think of grant funding as a nice to have, not a need to have and I think when you just start thinking about deep tech startups, revenue streams and considering the grant funding as part of your revenue stream because it might take you years and it took ID Quantique 10 to 14 years before they got to a point where you have traditional revenue through customers that you traditionally think about you sell a service or a product to a traditional customer and then they exchange it for revenue. So I think for a deep tech startup if you're building a deep tech startup think of revenue as what enables you to grow your company and increase the value of your company and in the early days R&D is really what's driving the value of your company and the R&D is helping you de-risk the technology so that's something that is very, very different than a tech-enabled company where even in the early days of a tech-enabled company you're thinking about value creation through how many customers do I have? How much revenue do I have bringing in? And then later in the later stages of a lot of deep tech companies your value creation and the driver for increasing the value of your company is really into finding a specific application for your technology and then implementing it in the market. So for the case of ID Quantique it took 10 to 14 years before they were able to find a customer that could actually buy their chips and pay them recurring revenue and transactional revenue for that. So I think when we build deep tech companies we need to start thinking about a couple of things. One, understand that it's gonna be capital intensive understand that it might be a long time to get to what you consider traditional revenue. So start thinking about grant funding as a potential source of revenue. Think co-development. Think about contracts that help you develop or assess a part of your technology. That's all revenue. Another thing is think about who you can work with strategically so that you can get that feedback and get that source of development dollars. Anything that you bring in that helps you grow your team de-risk the technology. Can you build an application-driven product? That's all revenue. And that's all things that we just need to start considering when we build deep tech. And that's very different than a tech-enabled startup. I love what you just said. I just wanna add one more thing that I think is critically important. A tech-enabled startup, pretty much any investor can understand it. A deep tech startup, you need a deep tech investor that understands the field. And for example, that's why I'm a venture partner with the Robotics Hub. And we all have years of commercializing robotics experience. Robotics AI and some quantum technologies thrown in there as well. But we come out of various backgrounds that make us able to be much more aware of what is happening in that technology space and how you go about commercializing within that technology space. And your average investor doesn't have that. No, it's fantastic. In fact, Nick, Niki, I'm gonna turn to you just in a second because I think you're hitting on some really key points here. It's a long road, right? You have to have patient capital, but you have to have some serious what equity is the term that's used, right? You're putting your blood, sweat and tears. When you're looking at that tech value depth and there's a graphic I had commissioned when I was at the SBA years ago when I used to oversee the SBA program over there and if you Google it, you'll see it. But you'll see the funding lines that happen in that tech value of depth, right? So it's generally speaking, I talked about it. If you're getting that government funding to help offset, it's augmenting your series A capital. So it starts off with yourself with sweat equity, friends and family, then you get maybe if you're using government or non-dilutive capital to help augment, then you've got your series A, then your series B, then your series D and D. And oh, sorry, before the non-dilutive capital, you go into angel, from angel, it goes on. And, Andra, you made a really good point. There's a lot of folks who will put themselves out there and say, I invest, I invest, I'm an investor. And I'm like, yeah, really? Are you sure about that? Because having worked for a few deep tech SBIR companies that, you know, in my prior life years ago, I worked for Ecovative Design out of Troy, New York, right? And that's the company that takes my psyllium that made the Styrofoam polymer material that replaces Styrofoam with mushrooms, right? So Evan Bayer, Gavin McIntyre, good friends of mine, co-founded this company that basically creates a product to replace Styrofoam. And it's interesting because it took a long time. They started in 2006, they were a few years younger than me at RPI, but we got connected through to networking. And they're still at it, to this day. Now they're partnered with Robert Downey with Atlas Food Company and a few other things they're doing, but with like the next gen fake meat and stuff like that. You know, Nicky, I want to jump to you for a second. Universities play a huge role in the space of the risk and technology, right? And, you know, Bud Peterson was my provost at RPI, right? So I love Bud. I was a student of Bud's when I was at RPI back from 98 to 2002. He did a wonderful job in transforming Georgia Tech the past decade. I know he retired as out of the game, but I'm kind of curious to hear your thoughts because I know he was a huge evangelist of this kind of efforts when he was on the National Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Right, yeah, no, no, you're so spot on. You know, one of the places that I, you know, work here on campus is ATDC or Advanced Technology Development Center. And, you know, and that's our single focus is deep tech companies. And I mean, gosh, when you look at, we've got a Rockstar portfolio of companies that are really killing it and that have largely taken advantage of SBIR funding to really help launch their companies and really grow in scale. And we have some of those non-traditional deep tech companies in our portfolio as well. I see a really happy relationship between deep tech companies and non-deep tech companies, right? So when you think about some of the technologies that some of these deep tech companies create, a lot of startups that, rather they're technology companies or tech enabled leverage some of the proprietary IP that comes out of some of these deep technologies. When we think of tools like IBM Watson and Einstein from Salesforce and how Salesforce sits behind, you know, the CRM sits behind so many companies and helping them power and grow and thrive. You know, so there's tech, I see a happy intersection between deep tech and regular tech, but there is a huge distinction, right? When we think about some of our local and global issues, you know, deep tech really has a single focus on really how do we make humanity better, right? And how do we improve humanity? And I love the fact that while you have some critics are like, why are we spending time and space? I think space is important, right? Just as well as how we have the ocean economy. Well, where there's so much focus on that as well too. So I think that when you think about all the opportunities that come from like deep technologies and just even with clean meat, right? With new novel cell lines, using new cell lines to create new meats, right? We've got like really hard deadlines of like 2050, 2060 of like global food shortages, right? And so as these scientists and engineers that are working on, you know, how do we push the limits and pull in the deep tech aspect? But then it also takes your traditional technology companies that may be working in supply chain logistics to help drive some of that meat that was created, right? So I see kind of a really a happy relationship between the two and there are so many startups that are using technologies that were created for a deep tech intent, but then there's this other adjacent market that they're able to leverage. The challenge to Andrea's point to which I love that she made is that it really does take a savvy investor to really understand the deep tech landscape because you gotta have delayed gratification because it is a long runway to you actually get there. And if your fund is honestly is not really north of $200 or $300 million, you honestly should not even be playing in that deep tech space. That's not to say that you can't, but when you think about, you know, the cost of bringing medical devices and therapeutics and drugs to market, you know, it's an extremely value proposition. And the thing with deep tech is, is that it has the opportunity to sit at the intersection between, you know, public private funding to really help launch it to get it to market. So there are a lot more mechanisms that can enable the deep tech company that can really help us to actually take advantage of some new novel things. And so I think that there is a huge distinction. I do think that, you know, I may be a bit biased because I, you know, focus on deep tech, but I do think deep tech is really the thing that's really going to fundamentally change the way we live, the way we function, the way we do things. Like I said, because we're so interconnected, there's a space company that's in our accelerator here and they're working on trying to solve the problem of getting payloads in the space, right? It's $55,000 per kilo to send something in space, right? And so everyone is now in the space race. So, yeah, and so there's so much going on around that. There is a lot and in fact, and there's so much more. And if you don't mind, again, I got to do a couple of audibles because this is the best main conversation. To the three of you, I'm kind of curious because so besides working for Ecovative and a few other things, I've also consulted the plan, right? Years ago, back in 20, one plan it's about the IPO, there was SPAC. I know the guys who did Made in Space that became Redwire, that's SPAC, went down. A friend of mine is the chair of the board of Arrival, that's the EV, that's SPAC, and then Rivian's about to do it. I'm trying to curious, SPAC, SPAC, SPAC, SPAC, SPAC. I'm sorry, Jist, I know I'm playing a little bit of an audible, but I ask, what's your take on the SPAC thing? I mean, one of my mentors was Peter Cuneo, right? So he's the former CEO of Marvel Entertainment. He was the one who turned that company around and sold it to Disney. He's now the board chair of Arrival, and I'm just kind of curious. He did that through a SPAC, so he gave me the rundown of why he did a SPAC, and I was just like, oh my, this is interesting. Curious what your takes are on the SPAC because that's disrupting a little bit of the deep tech IPO play. Yeah, it is, right? I mean, being able to find, just to find a new novel pathway and just to take something that you didn't think was possible, and then all of a sudden it kind of disrupts thing and becomes possible. I love it, right? I mean, and that's the whole part about having someone that understands how to take deep technology and how to navigate a landscape and how to put it in a position for it to actually be successful. I mean, I think that, I love what's happening in the robotic space. I mean, just all of the technologies that are coming out with that. So for me, I mean, I don't know if I answered your question. I've got a bunch of thoughts going through my mind and everything to that. But it's like, I mean, I think about it and it's like, I mean, you're so spot on with it. I mean, I think that it is unique the way that played out, but I think it's important to have these conversations and also to make sure that we amplify these conversations, right? Because if we don't, people don't realize, they think that deep tech is just, well, it's gonna take 20 years to get the market when there's things that didn't have to take 20 years to get the market, right? That are on the market that had a short runway, and that were able to leverage. I mean, not to go back to the whole drug thing, like for instance, like you got companies that are leveraging biosimilars, right? To kind of get products to market and products out the market a little faster than the traditional pathway by using restructured molecules to advance like products. But anyway, I could go on and on and on about that, but I don't wanna hog up the conversation from the rest of the panel. It looks like Andrew's got something to say, go for it. A short point, like deep tech is disruptive and the entire investment ecosystem is evolving and being disrupted. And we're starting to see things like Sequoia just announced the whole pool fund and rolling funds. And we're seeing an extension of lengths in funds of Steve Gerbertson and Marianne Sengpo's future fund which has closer to a 20 year turnaround period. This is specifically to develop investment vehicles that are relevant for the space industry. Right, yep, right. Yeah, I mean, sorry, me go for it. I'm extremely bullish on SPACs as a way to increase the amount of revenue, growth revenue for later stage development of deep tech companies. You can think of a SPAC as instead of the individual founders and the investors that have already invested going out and raising that really big one to $200 million dollar round that's needed to build out, let's say a pilot plant or something like that, you can think of the equivalence of that as having a much bigger ecosystem of people going out and fundraising in order to bring that technology to a point where it is scalable. So I think SPACs, now I'm not a finance person, so I'm just saying that for what it's worth. But I think it's been really enabling for a lot of deep tech companies. Yes, and for those who don't know it to the audience, SPACs are what's called a special acquisition company. It's a little bit of a work around loophole if you're planning to do an IPO. What was interesting in the case of arrivals is that they were a UK based EV company that came to the US and decided to do their IPO through SPAC. And two and a half years after you saw everyone starting to do SPACs left and right and I just chuckled when I saw that because I had the, when that was happening I was like, I went back to Peter and said, so that's what you were working on. He's like, oh yeah. I didn't have a heads up or anything. I just knew he had something funny, something pretty neat about to happen. And then when I went public and it was in CNBC, I was like texting him and I was like, so that's what you're working on? He's like, yeah, I want to get back to them and the GIF team's like, hey, make sure you're answering the questions. We need people to understand you. So we talked a little, we've already touched on this topic, but I think it was good to get additional perspective. Andre and me a little bit more about universities and the overall commercialization pathway too. We've talked an awful lot about government funding already. So I don't want to continue on that path. I mean, it's a fabulous and fantastic path but we've got a lot, but universities, how do we, Nikia gave a great perspective from Georgia Tech, but I'm curious, me, your perspective from Wolf and Andre as a VC and disruptor out in the valley, how are you leveraging the university pipeline? Yeah, I'm at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, which is the tech transfer arm. We're a nonprofit entity, so we're a little bit different than a lot of tech transfer arms tied to universities, but we serve the University of Wisconsin, Madison and we talk a lot about intellectual property, we talk a lot about technical skill, we talk a lot about that bridging that valley of death needed to get you to a point when you can find a market application, you can raise some money from angels, and I think universities have a role to play in all of those things. One is that a lot of deep tech comes from universities because think about it, universities are on the cutting edge of innovation with pushing the boundaries of what is possible in physics and chemistry and biology, so a lot of new innovation, highly disruptive foundational technologies come from universities and talent comes from universities. We talk a lot about intellectual property tied to technology, but all of the intellectual property in terms of knowledge, in terms of experience working in the field to know how to troubleshoot when something comes up, that's all tied to talent and universities are great pipelines for developing really, really highly technical, well-skilled, experienced people who can work on those problems in deep tech R&D. And then finally, universities, we're starting to see quite a bit of university and government relationships and collaborations that provide gap funding to help technologies get to the point where you have the data necessary to go out and raise that first round of angel funding. Sometimes universities who don't have that access to that companies that come out of universities that don't have access to that type of funding, they leave the university a little bit early and then they are essentially floundering for a little bit, kind of figuring out how do I get money in order to support my people so that they don't go off and find a job that pays more than ramen noodles? How do I get the money needed in order to do the R&D? And sometimes at the Wisconsin Alumni Research Foundation, we have gap funding that provides up to $1,000 to $500,000 to do that one experiment that you need to do in order to get that data to raise that first round so that you aren't essentially waiting for that data in order to do something. So I think that universities play a really, really big role. A mentee of mine, let's just start up when he comes to me and ask questions. He's always putting stuff to me. This was my personal life, but it was always funny when he would say, I'm trying to get that net positive cash drop. It's a positive cash drop. I'm trying to get it so that I'm no longer eating ramen noodles but getting into a subway sandwich and then I'll feel happy that we're doing something or like that. Sadly, not every university is created equal when it comes to that. We are often the landing pad for startups as they find that they don't have the support that they need in the university or that they've maxed out the resources. But the first question I ask founders in DicTech generally is have you used all of the resources that your university has to offer? And it goes beyond funding. It's access to lab space and it can be access to experts and testing facilities, things that you're otherwise going to have to pay a lot of money for. And from your advisors to your testing facilities, there's a lot that universities have to offer beyond simply funding. And it's never about money will solve all your problems. It's about how do you smartly access the resources that you're going to need? Something I think that it's really understated, really understated is that a lot of intellectual property comes from universities and something tied back to more than just funding that we haven't touched on is the role that universities play in the patenting and licensing and defense of intellectual property. Companies, we talk a lot about intellectual property and companies, I'll see very often companies say, you shouldn't invest in me because I've got a patent and then we ask the question, well, what do you have allocated for defense of your intellectual property and the number is zero? And so your intellectual property is only as good as your ability to maintain and defend it and universities and tech transfer offices at universities that's what they do. They're very good at it. They're very good at surveying the landscape for when someone is violating and abusing the use of intellectual property that they own and have licensed to somebody who is a good actor, who is doing world changing, life changing, humanity contributing research. So I think that's another service we haven't talked about but that is universities play a really big role in protecting and defense of intellectual property that enables deep tech startups to do what they do. Yeah. I would act of that. As someone who used to work in tech transfer at the university level at RFEI and then actually I worked for the patent office in my early part of my career, I was a patent examiner. So yeah, I saw it when universities, it does depend though, let's be fair, there's some universities are really good at it and there are other universities that are not. Warp is a great example of being good at it and with Georgia Tech, but it does come with the territory but Nikki, it looks like you're about to say something. Yeah, what I was gonna say, Andrew, a good point, not all universities are created equal. I think that it's in the university's interest if you know you don't not have a strong tech transfer IP pipeline to find another anchor university that you maybe that you can partner with that can help you with that process, right? But also having strong ties to your startup local ecosystem is oftentimes they will have some of the resources that you may need or the expertise that your university doesn't have. One of the biggest things that I always see specifically to VCs when it comes to university IP and tech transfer is not having a friendly process, right? How do you make that process friendly but also fair to the university, fair to the researcher but venture they're in it to make money, right? As well, so let's just call it out for what it is but then that process has to be a little bit more smoother, right? Because I mean, these are some technologies that really do need to get the market but sometimes it's held up with the paper, the process and it's just, and it's in that pipeline sometimes gets backlog and some of these technologies end up just collecting dust and never really make it to market which is a shame because we never know what is sitting on a lot of these university shelves that really need to get out that can really truly be game changer. So universities need to really play a strong role in developing strong ecosystems and pulling in other universities. Maybe that the R1 universities that do a high level of research and maybe you have that R2 that does some but not a lot and don't have a tech transfer and find a real happy relationship to really help some of these faculty members. And the reason I'm saying that from my own personal experience that I spent a great deal of time mentoring and working with faculty, not just here in Georgia but across the country that do not have access to a Georgia Tech or University of Wisconsin or Stanford or something like that to really help them understand the tech transfer process and help them understand what the translational piece of their research and how do you actually assess that for market and all of that. But yeah, it definitely has universities have to have a strong role in developing their local ecosystems to make sure that they can leverage assets in the ecosystem that they do not have at their university. I think one thing to emphasize is that something that Nikia said about partnering with other universities I think it should extend internationally. We get the benefit in the US of having a very well-established government supported innovation ecosystem and there are emerging ecosystems globally where there are a lot more government support. So I mentioned that Singapore is where the headquarter for our family offices and we've seen in the last 10 to 15 years a significant rise of government supported innovation grants there. The other thing that we're seeing is a lot more partnerships between universities, international universities and US-based universities where we have, for example, the University of Wisconsin-Madison partnered with Nursultan University in Kazakhstan to help provide some of our insight into what works and what are best practices that have worked for us and what hasn't worked so well in terms of providing not just monetary support but services and things like expedited, smoother pathway to licensing for companies that are coming out of universities. So when universities are thinking about building ecosystems, think internationally. Right, right. Yeah. These are some great questions and great answers and just for our global audience again, if you're joining us now, you're in the middle of watching us as part of the Just Tech Connect program for Global Entrepreneurship Week. The future of innovation is deep tech. That is our discussion today. You know, we're dancing around this topic a little bit. I think I want to jump through it a little bit sooner and there are a couple other questions coming out there but one of the just innovation hubs said, what is the role of incubators in the accelerators in supporting deep tech stars? Because we were talking about universities one on I feel like there's a natural segue into with the incubator accelerator efforts. As someone who could develop the growth accelerator from competition years ago at SBA, you know, there were a handful of incubators and accelerators out there and now there's this massive network across the US and especially around the world as the fever startup fever has been rampant everywhere. So I'm just kind of want to get your two cents on that and then I'll jump back to another question around collaboration between Smalls and big companies as well. So first, accelerators and incubators. Absolutely. And will Silicon Valley Robotics as an industry association, as a nonprofit we actually are also an accelerator and we do not fund, but we don't take equity. And there are, for example, some university or some other accelerators that follow the same model and the models that incubators and accelerators are working on have evolved hugely just in the last 10 years, let alone over the 20 odd year history. And so what we can provide is a lot of other services and resources that you might not have access to beyond the funding itself. And I think it's really important for founders to do their due diligence and find out what the terms and conditions are and what the benefits are from an incubator or accelerator. And they're usually an essential part of your growth but with this, I guess, fashionable interest in deep tech and in startups more broadly, there are so many new accelerators out there and sadly there are some very predatory ones out there and funds for that matter too. They offer unreasonable terms, they have hidden costs and they overcharge you for services that they provide as part of them funding you. So there are a lot of very, very bad deals out there and some of the biggest names in the business without naming any of them are actually the worst. So do not assume that a well-known name means that it's a good deal. And also do not look at the overall track records for success. Look at the track record for the sort of company that you are or the sort of technology that you are. I mean, sadly, I've seen funds and accelerators use deep tech startups, particularly in the robotics and space sectors, effectively as loss leaders. They make great publicity, they keep the LPs going, oh my goodness, this fund is so ahead of the times. But those startups end up thrown away on the dust heap. They do not survive. Right. Yeah, there's so much I can say on that and I don't want to get in trouble but it's funny what Andrew said, boot wall is not my place, right? I'm not supposed to pass judgment as someone in my role, but I was supposed to be a political and neutral. But I will say this, Andrew, that makes a very good point. Andrew, if you don't mind, can you at least like elucidate to the community where are viable sources of information so that they can do their due diligence or just kind of do their homework a little bit better? Like, are there sources that you would recommend them to read up on? Okay, there are a lot of media outlets that track funding. Now, the problem is they usually only tell you when a company has funded. They don't tell you when a company has failed. Gibo there being appointed in case that was a high profile failure. So there is a lot of back analysis about it. There are several database services out there. Most of them terribly expensive and handy for venture firms or investors to use. But there are some, a few have shut down, but Crunchbase, for example, is comparatively cheap. There's another tool that I recommend to founders which is Founders Suite, which has very good databases. But I think Crunchbase tends to have more historic data as to companies that have closed their doors. Yet having said that, sometimes the best advice that I'm in a position to offer startups is to say the reason that you are the first person to do this is because the other six companies that were doing this failed. And they say, no, I've done my research. There's nobody else doing this. And I'm like, well, they're just buried deep. I've seen them going through the first investment rounds and it is not a good product market fit. Yeah, I think, to your point, it's much like every investor has an investment thesis, here's what we like to invest in, here's our track record. I think that while some incubators and accelerators, they have their mission statement, I think it needs to be a little bit more clarified to your point, right? Because you've got some that kind of jump into the space because it's cool, like you said, to have a very well-known deep tech-like associated to your incubator. But at the end of the day, right now, being in a Zoom world, so to speak, entrepreneurs really have the ability to access quality accelerators and incubators that are really doing some great work. Of course, like ours on campus, the Advanced Technology Development Center, but then you have some more global ones like Mass Challenge out of Boston that are doing really great work and they have really great programming and have great people running their organization. And they're international as well too. But there are a lot of accelerators out there and just call it what it is, right? A lot of them are deal flow, right? Let me get a bunch of companies in so we can get companies to investors so we can kind of keep that pipeline going, right? And so there's not a real lot of times for incubating these kinds of companies. There is an organization in DC called Halcyon which I love their mission, their goal. Just very forward thinking around how do you really build out a company and an entrepreneur and provide them with quality mentors? One of the things that I see that's lacking in a lot of these incubators and accelerators is the quality of mentors, right? You can find any mentor that can talk about P&Ls and marketing and all of that. But when you start talking to very specific SME mentors that really helps put good quality translational learning to the founder, they really help them walk them through a process of really getting their product from ideation and commercialization. You see that kind of really lacking a little bit and some of the accelerators. And so you'll see entrepreneurs or founders, they will incubate or accelerate hop because they didn't get what they wanted at one and then they're always hop into the next. Not to say one accelerator or incubator has to be the end on be all. But what it says is that there's a quality there that the entrepreneur is looking for that they're not getting. And so there needs to be kind of a check balance system with some of these accelerators and incubators. If you accelerate a hop, you dilute the value of your company significantly and you become uninvestable. That needs to come with a warning as well. But it's funny you mentioned Mass Challenge because I love what they do, but they're cohort based and I don't believe in that. And we work with startups that finish in that program and then come to us to pick up and provide the same support but on an ongoing basis. And I really think that your best investors get to know you before they're investing. And they work not simply on returning value to their LPs but they work on returning value to their portfolio companies and their founders. And a lot of founders believe that all investors are really doing it for the good of the startup. And again, sadly, that is not the case. And you can start to see where some of the big names have a bad track record, particularly with the deep tech startups that may be slow to mature. And when an investor is very committed to a five-year turnaround and they're approaching the end term of a fund, then you may be wooed in with wonderful offers but within two to three years, the founders have been kicked out the door and the startup has been sold for scrap. It's not creating an ongoing business. I think one thing to tie to that, I like what you said about how you continue to work with entrepreneurs. This idea of 12-week cohorts and then you're in and out, we've talked a lot about what not to do and what I'm looking for an accelerator or an incubator. Don't accelerator, incubator, hop. The other thing is make sure that you aren't thinking about an incubator and accelerator as a source of funding. They're not. The funding that they provide is enabling for the logistics of you participating in that program. It's not there for you to do R&D. That's not what it's for. So if you are at the point where you're running out of money and you think applying to an accelerator is what you need to do to keep your company going, that's probably not a good fit. And a lot of accelerators, they pride themselves on the number of applicants they get and sometimes they'll encourage you to apply just so that you can apply. And I think there's something to be said about the heart-wrenching psychological repercussions of that on our entrepreneurs, especially ones that are coming out of universities, first-time entrepreneurs, it is predatory. So what do you, I think, considering the audience that we have, I'm gonna assume that a lot of the audience that we have today are in university, have ties to universities, might be first-time detect founders. What are things that you should be doing? One, check to see if you really actually enjoy the time with it, who the mentors are and if you enjoy interacting with the mentors before you even apply. That's the first thing. The second thing is deep tech is long, it's slow. So think about, look at how companies that have gone through the program continue to engage with the program. Three is think about the industry vertical you're in and think about who are the investors and the sponsors of those accelerators and incubators. We, I know Nagesh mentioned this way, probably 10 minutes ago before we jumped onto this tangent about the next question we'll talk about is industry and university as deep as that. There we go. Let's talk a little bit. I was getting prompted, they're like, make sure you ask them a question about the industry and small business startup intersection. And in America it's called Primes and Courage, Mentor Courage, but please go for it, please, please. So one way you can think about corporates is, you know, we'll let Nagesh ask this question, but I think, you know, just to jump the gun a little bit. You're already addressing it. Just to jump the gun a little bit. Think about accelerators that do have a connection to a lot of corporates in your space. Deep tech startups, you're gonna need, you're gonna need feedback, you're gonna need collaboration from corporates and a lot of corporate companies that are really, really big have research and development dollars dedicated to smaller startups and smaller potential vendors. And corporate venture capital is one of the savviest, smartest money that you can get if you can get it. So think when you're looking at an accelerator, especially if you're a first time deep tech, first time founder and founding a deep tech company, make sure that there are really strong ties to corporates. Not when I say strong ties, I mean, do you actually get to engage with the people from these companies? Not just, are they a logo listed as a potential sponsor? Right. Actually, and I was gonna say, I appreciate the corporate VC plug because I used to work in that space an awful lot and there's a lot of folks that know about me, but maybe another day, but the corporate VC and they were based, and they're based internationally, right? And it's funny because you were multi-billion dollar textile manufacturing company does OEM for a number of companies that we all know to this day, like you're probably wearing their gear, but they're an OEM. Those folks don't realize that these OEMs, original equipment manufacturer, original government manufacturer, they have venture capital funds. They will invest because they're looking for the pipeline development as part of their supply chain. And the key idea when I interrupt you or saying something. No, no, no, that's just a great point. I was just gonna piggyback and just add to the running joke is that the startup world is the R&D world for corporate, right? It is. So it just, it makes a really perfect relationship, but it's how do you begin that process and how do you engage that? And what I love about at Georgia Tech, we have strong partnerships, right? That is one of the things that Georgia Tech is really strong at with all of our own campus activity, whether it be in ATDC, Engage, or CreateX or VentureLab and all the activities that we've kind of got going on. But one of the things that we have which is a very successful program is Industry Connect. And we help our founders establish pilots with corporations and often it does turn into funding, but it's a nice long relationship to, okay, you've got a tech I wanna use, but how do we get it ready to implement and onboard into our ecosystem, right? Because there's a pathway and a long way for that. And so we've got a dedicated person that his full-time job is Industry Connect and to make that connection with corporations as well. So that part is so important. Absolutely. Good corporate partners. I'm sorry, I forgot to go for it. Well, they can serve so many functions for you. They can be a check, they can be a customer. Right. They can be a validation of your business model and they can be out there arranging investors for you because they want you to succeed because they need you. So they are such good value. Right. And one thing we haven't talked about is, we've talked a lot about early stage deep tech, but what about the exit opportunity tied to deep tech? Well, it turns out two of the prime key exit opportunities for deep tech that we haven't talked about at all, has nothing to do with SPACs, has nothing to do with going public, is an aqua hire where a large corporate company will acquire your company in order to hire your talent pool or a straight up acquisition, Nikia mentioned, that sometimes we think about deep tech startups as the R&D arm, risky, very early R&D arm for big corporations. And sometimes deep tech companies, corporates engage with them at the very early stages, very, very nascent stages, even before you have a product show because at that point you're asking for feedback, you're not asking for money at that point. And if they can give you some time and some expertise to guide you to develop something into their specifications, why not? So corporates are willing to give you that time. At some point when you have the product to this specification, they're willing to give you some money to do that initial R&D to see if you're good and they'll monitor you over time so that you can take the risk of developing the technology they need in their R&D pipeline. And that leads to, these relationships take a long time to cultivate. So if you cultivate it early, you engage often, there's an opportunity for an exit through an acquisition or an aqua hire that has nothing to do with you going public. You know, Tony, I was actually, you just stole it right from me because I was about, and it's great you did because you're the speaker, I'm just a moderator. The merger acquisition play is huge. The aqua hire play is huge. I have actually seen it. I've been part of it. I have helped facilitate it for in the corporate VC play at the time. So it's not a joke. Like that happens an awful lot more so than most folks really. We are short on time and I know, Andre, you're eager to see something. So I'll let you say it real quick because I got to get a lot more. My final statement, I want to double down on what Nia just said. When you go into your first funding round, you must be thinking about the full journey. That's right. You must, you know, there's a couple of things I would say negotiate. You can always negotiate. And two, do your due diligence. As much as the investors do diligence on you, do your diligence on anybody that you get involved with and find out, do they have the values and the services that they say that they're going to provide? And that final point that Nia just raised beautifully, you've got to think about the full stage of your journey. You're never just gonna raise one check. You're growing a company. I'm glad you said that, Andre, because that actually is a great answer too. The question I was about to put out there and I'll close out with this question to all of you because I know we're short on time, but there was a question from the audience about 3D printing, right? And the fact that it was still bit nascent and whatnot. It is nascent. It's still got a lot of kinks to be worked out as someone who almost 15, 16 years ago, I was the one of the guys at an exam at our school with allowing and rejecting a ton of the 3D printing patents that were coming through the U.S. patent termocopter. So I'm very familiar with 3D systems and all those folks' supply materials, all of them were playing in that space because I would see the emmer saying, yep, nope, yep, nope. I'm good friends with a few of the folks who are pioneers in that space. Just friends afterwards when I left the fat office, they're like, oh, you're them and my patent. When I was in the valley, I was like, oh yeah, I did. The question goes into deep text characteristic challenges, which is that the tech is ahead of its time and it may not have a market gap, okay? Andre, you were hitting a right there. You have to think about the long-term journey. It's a seven to 10-year game plan. Kind of curious if, Nikia and me, do you have any other additional thoughts about it? Yeah, I'm going to go back to ID Quantique. It started 20 years ago. Took 10 to 14 years to get to the point where it was able to get a customer. And I think if you are a technology that's way ahead of your time, what you should focus on is two folks. One, get industry feedback because there are lots of corporates that think about incremental improvements and disruptive improvements. And the biggest corporates out there, they have an allotted focus on some percent of their R&D budget goes to incremental and some percent of their R&D budget in terms of time and money goes to disruptive. So engage with those corporates because if you have a cutting-edge technology, they might not be ready to use it just yet, but they'll sure tell you how to build, what to build, what to build specifically for use in order for you to develop it out. And then the other thing to focus on is what is the competitive advantage that is enabled by the unique aspect of your intellectual property? If you hone down on that, you'll never go wrong. Yeah, I'm going to say focus on the customer and the problem that I'm going to break it down real simple. Focus on the customer and the problem to be solved. If you are a researcher, faculty, student, fall in love with the customer's problem, you will never go wrong. Follow that thread all the way until you're ringing that bell on NASDAQ and you got your IPO and you're exited and you're off to the races and you're rockin' and rollin' with your billions of dollars, right? But yeah, follow the customer. That is my advice. Spend time, ideation and commercialization is a process, right? And you can't, some parts of building deep tech startups is real simple and straightforward and some of them are extremely complicated that have to navigate extremely regulatory pathways to get to market. But if you understand the customer, understand the problem to be solved, you'll always be in a good shape and never leave with the technology but always leave with the customer problem and let the customer be first. So we're definitely over time and so let's close out with this real quick. Final two words from each of you. I'll start off first to the audience, be tenacious. Andra. Due diligence. Okay, Nikia. God, you caught me there. Yeah, I'll pass it to her and then come back to me. Me? Chugging along. I think you just gotta keep chugging along. Chugging along, okay? Yeah, you know, ignore the naysayers and keep making it happen. Okay, well, I'll accept that. All right, thank you, Andra, Nikia, for joining us and sharing your expertise and experiences today. I so want to thank everyone for viewing today, especially the viewers around the globe and bringing the entrepreneurs together to be part of this conversation. Even though today's program is over, we don't want that conversation of Brown entrepreneurship and innovation and chasing your dreams to stop there. So please continue this conversation on Twitter, at hashtag just tech connect and check back here on gistnetwork.org for information about other upcoming gist events, including programs like this. Thank you all and have a good afternoon, good morning, good evening wherever you are around the world.