Keong Chan of Out the Back Ventures discusses how his venture firm differentiates between rebadged legacy nuclear concepts and foundational deep tech.
Insight
Chan: 12-week accelerators struggle to turn academic researchers into business operators
“You're looking at university accelerators, I think in general you know, they tend to be something like, you know, 12 week courses to teach or mentor a university of research to found the company. Sometimes, you know, it's not to say that it doesn't work but th…”
Assertion Supported
Chan: China added the equivalent of the US energy grid in ten years
“China has put on the whole of the US energy grid in the last 10 years.”
Insight
Chan: Academic researchers spot technology breakthroughs long before mainstream investors
“What happens is that in research, there's an awareness of things coming down the pipe in the research community that mainstream and investors don't really know about, but that part there is really, really valuable, and that's the part that we want, we get onto”
Opinion
Chan: Neuromorphic Computing Is Accelerating in Commercial Readiness
“There's this growing field of neuromorphic computing, which has been there for a long time, but it's starting to improve in its commercial readiness, and it's really accelerating at the moment.”
Insight
Chan: Commercial validation and runway dramatically improve executive hiring for spin-outs
“Our thesis, and it's proved to be true, is that the caliber of people that you can attract to a startup like these are early, but if you can get them out of the lab, you can answer some questions around, okay, these are the parties that we, that have expressed…”
Insight
Chan: Traditional VCs struggle to invest pre-team formation in deep tech
“When you deal with something as early as what we are, and we're taking multiple bets, you know, across all these emerging fields of research generally difficult for VCs to invest at that point in time, you know, because they're pre, pre-formation of teams, you…”