Episode 33: From Lab Bench To Marketplace

This week we spoke to Katie Rae, the CEO of The Engine, a Cambridge (Mass.) based deep tech accelerator that provides the physical workspace to develop the companies, the Cambridge brain trust to guide the founders, and the financial backing to make each transformative idea a reality. The companies range from robotics, energy, medical devices, and biotech. Prior to The Engine, Katie was the served as Chairman and Managing Director of Boston TechStars.

The Engine, solves an enormous problem in taking these deep tech companies from ideation to realisation. That is, despite the enormous interest from investors in these areas, it's simply too difficult for these companies to access the resources they need - you can't just build a quantum computer in a WeWork...

The Engine Room is the nexus of The Engine concept; an online platform that provides the lab space and equipment for the founders to build their companies. But beyond the resource-poor founders, the Engine Room encourages external organisations that wish to support seedling companies by providing equipment to sign up too.

We were keen to hear about the innovation- and collaboration-focussed Kendall Square area, the difference in working with typical tech companies and the kind of deep tech startups The Engine brings in, and why deep tech can both be incredibly lucrative but also rewarding to fully realise a truly transformative company out of the lab.

You can see more on what The Engine is all about here: