S6: E3. How Venture Builders Are Helping to Scale Deep Tech in Climate ft. Puja Balachander (Carbon13)

For this episode, I spoke with Puja Balachander, Director of Venture at Carbon13, the venture builder for the climate emergency.

Across this series we will be discussing the challenges around scaling deep tech solutions within climate. I’ll be speaking to Investors, Founders, Venture Builders and other key ecosystem players all focused on scaling and commercialising groundbreaking, deep tech innovations.

We will explore how to prepare for the challenges that deep tech companies often face around fundraising, scaling, team building and commercialisation; and we’ll hear from stories of those who have successfully scaled to Series A and beyond.

Video versions of this and previous episodes are available here.

https://carbonthirteen.com/

2:14 - What is Carbon13?

4:39 - What challenges do you see deep tech startups facing?

8:24 - How is gaining commercial traction different for hardware than software, and what can hardware companies do to gain that traction?

14:55 - If a team doesn’t have existing knowledge within the team about commercialisation, how can they gain it and upskill themselves?

20:00 - What skills would a startup need as a minimum within the founding team for you to be interested?

23:55 - How does the support you give differ for deep tech than someone building a software-based business?

28:58 - What are the differences in IP with deep tech and what support do you give with de-risking and defensibility?

31:50 - How do you offer lab space within Carbon13?

33:05 - Are there any companies that you’ve seen come through Carbon13 that have done particularly well and what do you think set them apart?

37:20 - Showing your learnings to investors.

39:57 - What things do you think could be improved within the funding landscape for hardware companies to allow them to access the necessary funding?

41:53 - Are those that aren’t from an academic background at a disadvantage when it comes to grant writing?

44:38 - What thresholds do you need to meet for debt financing?

48:20 - What are you excited about for the rest of this year and what are the Carbon13 application dates?

50:20 - Where can people go to make applications to Carbon13?

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