Lab to Market Leadership with Chris Reichhelm

Odcinki

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  Why Great Labs Need Breadth | Professor Hod Lipson on Robotics, AI and the 2030s 09.06.2026 58min

  What if the real innovation engine in Deep Tech is not the spinout, but the lab itself? Professor Hod Lipson is one of the world’s leading robotics researchers – recently the subject of a major Financial Times feature on the future of robotics. He directs Columbia’s Creative Machines Lab, where breadth beats specialisation, portfolios matter more than grades, and academia’s greatest role is to explore what industry cannot yet touch. In this episode, Hod explains why he built a lab around poss...
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  The Hard Thing about Hard Tech – Greg Smithies on the TRL 4-5 Challenge 12.05.2026 1godz 11min

  How do you move from novel idea to working prototype in hard tech? And how can you bend the rules of the game to give you a better chance of winning? Greg Smithies is a finance and operations leader who has worked with some of the world's most ambitious companies. He led finance and operations at Elon Musk's Neuralink and The Boring Company. He's also been an investor with Battery Ventures, BMW iVentures and Fifth Wall. He's helped raise over $2bn for startups, and over $950m for funds. This ...
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  Taking Over From a Founder CEO: Ian Temperton on Scaling Plastic Energy 29.04.2026 54min

  Ian Temperton became CEO of Plastic Energy in 2021 after five years as Chief Investment Officer. He stepped in as the company moved from pilot to industrial scale – executing multi‑million euro projects with SABIC and TotalEnergies. This is what happens when the external CEO works. Ian spent five years learning the business before taking over. The shift came mid-deployment, when execution discipline and governance became critical. The team stayed. The focus changed: from raising capital to de...
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  Graphene at Scale: How Paragraf Is Realising the Wonder Material’s Potential | Dr Simon Thomas 21.04.2026 1godz 4min

  Dr Simon Thomas never expected to be a founder. After 12 years inside TSMC, Samsung and LG, he was ready for a break from the pressure of the world’s biggest fabs. Then Professor Sir Colin Humphreys set him a challenge: could he make graphene at wafer scale – the same problem Samsung had spent $2.2 billion trying, and failing, to crack? Five weeks of experiments later, Simon saw the first promising result. A short time after that, Paragraf was born, and by December 2024 the company had switch...
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  From Finnish Lab to US IPO: Dr. Jan Goetz on Building Europe's Quantum Leader IQM 02.04.2026 1godz 5min

  Dr Jan Goetz never planned to be a CEO. He wanted to be a professor. But when co-founder Professor Mikko Möttönen asked about starting a company, Jan followed his gut. Seven years later, IQM is Europe's largest quantum computing company, heading towards US public listing, and has just secured €50M from BlackRock. This is a rare, personal look at the founder CEO journey – not just the company wins, but the internal transitions, the moments of doubt, and how Jan learned to lead whilst staying t...
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  From NASA to Startups: How TRLs Became the Universal Language of Deep Tech | John C. Mankins 18.03.2026 1godz 21min

  Technology Readiness Levels (TRLs) are the universal language of Deep Tech – used by NASA, the DoD, VCs, corporations and startups to measure innovation progress. But where did they come from? Professor John Mankins co-invented TRLs and wrote the 1995 white paper that gave them to the world. In this Season 2 premiere, he reveals the origin story: from Apollo-era NASA research centres, through Stan Sadin's combination of 'technology readiness' and 'levels' in the mid-1970s, to John addin...
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  Why 55% of Deep Tech Companies Fail: The Communication Problem No One Talks About | Hailey Eustace 27.01.2026 54min

  Why do 55% of Deep Tech companies fail within five years? Hailey Eustace, founder of Commplicated, argues the answer isn't bad technology - it's bad communication. Product-market fit failures? That's a listening and messaging problem. Can't raise capital? Your story isn't resonating. Struggling to win customers? Trust breakdown. Can't build the right culture? Your messages aren't landing. Hailey's unique background as an analyst at Texas's $500M Deep Tech fund before founding the UK's leading...
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  Manufacturing the Future in Space: Semiconductors, Sovereignty, and Ridiculously Audacious Goals | Josh Western 19.11.2025 1godz 3min

  What's the value of a ridiculously audacious goal if you never reach it? Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge, argues the question misses the point - because the innovations accelerated along the journey often matter more than the destination itself. Space Forge manufactures advanced semiconductor substrates in microgravity conditions, returns them via reusable satellites, then grows them terrestrially using a ‘sourdough starter’ approach. It's technically audacious, operationally complex, and so...
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  Building Useful Quantum Computers: Constraints, Customers, and the Two Religions of Quantum | Richard Murray 04.11.2025 1godz 4min

  What happens when quantum computing startups can’t wait 15 years for fault tolerance? Richard Murray, co-founder and CEO of Orca Computing, reveals how his team chose commercial usefulness over technical idealism - and why that decision drives everything from recruitment to product development. Operating from a University of Oxford spinout with limited resources compared to Google or IBM, Orca faced a choice: follow the same path but years behind and millions of pounds short, or constra...
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  Deep Tech Venture Building: Out The Back Ventures’ Blueprint for University Spinout Success 16.09.2025 1godz 2min

  What if early-stage Deep Tech investing could be completely reimagined? Keong Chan, Managing Director of Out The Back Ventures, has spent five years building one of the most unique investment approaches in the industry - operating from Perth, Australia, whilst building relationships with leading universities and national laboratories across four continents. Rather than waiting for deals to come to them, Out The Back Ventures proactively identifies breakthrough research and helps incorporate i...
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  Why Deep Tech Unicorns Fail: Lessons from Lilium and Arrival’s Billion-Dollar Mistakes | James Arnold 02.09.2025 1godz 13min

  What can we learn from the collapse of two billion-dollar Deep Tech unicorns? James Arnold held senior strategy and operations roles at both Lilium and Arrival - European companies that raised over a billion dollars each, employed thousands of engineers, and still ended in insolvency. This conversation reveals the hidden pitfalls that destroy Deep Tech companies: why rapid team growth kills startup agility, how too much capital corrupts decision-making, and why applying software ‘blitzscaling...
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  Deep Tech Spinouts: Inside Albion Ventures' Decade-Long Partnership with UCL | Dave Grimm 05.08.2025 45min

  Why do so few university spinouts make it from lab to market? Dave Grimm, Partner at Albion Ventures, has spent a decade answering this question through a groundbreaking partnership with University College London that's transformed how academic innovations become successful companies. This conversation reveals the blueprint for successful university spinouts: embedding VCs within academic ecosystems, prioritising pace over perfection, and creating standardised processes that work for founders...
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  Quantum Computing Scale-Up: How Universal Quantum is Building Million-Qubit Systems | Dr Sebastian Weidt 01.07.2025 1godz 6min

  What does it take to build million-qubit quantum computers - machines that could fundamentally change how we solve the world's most complex problems? Dr Sebastian Weidt, co-founder and CEO of Universal Quantum, shares the extraordinary journey from asking an audacious research question in 2017 to building one of the world's leading quantum computing companies. This conversation reveals the unique challenges of scaling breakthrough technology that operates on entirely different principles from...
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  Challenging Deep Tech Norms: Adopting Lean Principles from Lab to Market | Mark Bjornsgaard 17.06.2025 58min

  In this captivating episode of Lab to Market Leadership, Chris Reichhelm speaks with Mark Bjornsgaard, the visionary founder and CEO of System Two Group. With a track record of eight successful exits - notably the £200 million sale of Deep Green Technologies to Octopus Energy - Mark brings a powerful, often counterintuitive, perspective on building businesses, especially in the Deep Tech sector. Mark challenges the conventional wisdom of ‘build-measure-learn,’ arguing passionately for a...
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  Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough: The Tokamak Energy Story | Dr. David Kingham 03.06.2025 1godz 2min

  Nuclear fusion has been the ultimate ‘30 years away’ technology for decades. But is that finally changing? In this episode, Dr. David Kingham, founder of Tokamak Energy, shares the extraordinary journey of building one of the world's leading nuclear fusion companies from just three scientists and £200,000 to achieving 100 million degree plasma temperatures - the critical threshold for commercial fusion energy. David reveals how they transformed breakthrough superconductor technology through i...
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  How to Scale Chemical Engineering Startups | Peter J. Nieuwenhuizen PhD 23.01.2025 53min

  The road from lab to market for chemical engineering startups is anything but smooth. In this episode of Lab to Market Leadership, Chris Reichhelm talks to Peter J. Nieuwenhuizen PhD, a chemical industry veteran and former CTO of AkzoNobel and Enerkem, and Board chair of Itaconix Plc., about the brutal realities of scaling chemical engineering technologies. Peter shares the inside scoop on how regulation, scaling challenges, and securing funding play out in the chemical sector. Plus, he discu...
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  The State of UK Deep Tech | Dr David Cleevely CBE FREng FIET 03.12.2024 52min

  In this episode, host Chris Reichhelm is joined by Dr. David Cleevely CBE FREng FIET, co-founder of Cambridge Angels and a leading figure in UK science and technology. Together, they explore the intricate process of scaling Deep Tech companies, the importance of talent and vision, and the systemic challenges facing the UK’s innovation ecosystem. David shares lessons from decades of investing, building companies, and influencing policy, shedding light on how serendipity and networks can drive ...
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  University Spinouts and Deep Tech Investing | Marc Singer | Osage University Partners (OUP) 21.11.2024 51min

  In this episode of Lab to Market Leadership, Marc Singer, Managing Partner at Osage University Partners, joins host Chris Reichhelm to discuss the transformative role of university spinouts in Deep Tech. With decades of venture capital experience, Marc offers valuable insights into what makes a successful Deep Tech entrepreneur and shares lessons learned from OUP’s portfolio of 150+ companies. Perfect for innovators, founders, and investors navigating the lab-to-market journey. &...
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  Engineering Deep Tech: Scaling Plastic Recycling Technology | James Finlayson | Impact Recycling 12.11.2024 1godz

  In this episode of the Lab to Market Leadership podcast, host Chris Reichhelm speaks with James Finlayson, CTO and Co-Founder of Impact Recycling, to explore the journey of scaling their recycling technology from lab prototype to market-ready solution. Over the past decade, James has led the development of BOSS, an innovative technology that uses fluid dynamics to separate ‘hard-to-recycle’ plastics. Achieving 98% purity in processing mixed rigid waste, BOSS has enabled Impact Recyclin...
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  The Most Undervalued Skill in Deep Tech - Management | Chris Perkins PhD 01.11.2024 46min

  In The Deep Tech Leaders Podcast, serial entrepreneur Chris Perkins discusses the most undervalued skill in Deep Tech – management. Listen as he reveals lessons from his journey through two successful exits, sharing insights on market alignment, team culture, and effective leadership. Perfect for Deep Tech founders looking to scale their innovations and maximise success. Chapter Notes: 00:00 The Importance of Good Management 01:13 Introduction to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast 01:41 M...