433 | Adam Hammer: Funding and Scaling the Breakthrough Tech America Needs to Win the 21st Century
Nov 30, 2023
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Adam Hammer, President and Co-Founder of Roadrunner Venture Studios, discusses America's lag in developing deep tech, opportunities in quantum science, space, energy, and clean tech. Talks about New Mexico as an innovative hub and the venture studio model of funding deep tech. Also emphasizes the role of government in promoting innovation and the importance of taking risks in the workplace.
Roadrunner Venture Studios takes a unique venture studio approach to drive deep tech innovation in the US.
Roadrunner aims to bridge the gap between breakthrough research and market demand to create disruptive companies.
The US must aggressively invest, scale early insights, and lead in technology development to secure its competitive edge in global dominance.
Deep dives
Building Ecosystems for Deep Tech Innovation
Roadrunner Venture Studios, a new fund, is focused on building ecosystems and innovation engines to drive deep tech innovation in the US. They are taking a unique venture studio approach, partnering with founders, scientists, and researchers to launch and build new companies. The goal is to create disruptive businesses in under-leveraged regions across the country, starting in New Mexico. By combining research insights from universities and labs with real-world commercialization opportunities, Roadrunner aims to de-risk and scale these technologies.
Differentiating Venture Studio Model
Roadrunner's approach as a venture studio sets it apart from traditional venture capital firms, accelerators, and incubators. They go beyond providing capital and take a hands-on role in building businesses from the ground up. Roadrunner partners with scientists and innovators to transform concepts and research insights into market-ready companies. They provide support in developing minimum viable products, identifying product-market fit, building teams, and securing early customers. This unique approach combines the best elements of accelerators, incubators, and traditional venture funds, with a focus on de-risking lab technologies and creating disruptive companies.
Reviving the Legacy of American Innovation
Roadrunner aims to revive the legacy of American innovation modeled after past success stories like Bell Labs. While corporate labs like Bell Labs and Xerox played a significant role in driving early innovations, they are facing challenges in the current landscape. Roadrunner recognizes that research insights are now increasingly originating from universities and national labs, disconnected from real-world customer use cases. By partnering with scientists, Roadrunner aims to bridge this gap by combining breakthrough research with an understanding of market demand, creating products that solve pressing customer problems while fostering American competitiveness.
The Importance of American Competitiveness
We are at a critical moment in the competition for global dominance in critical technologies. The stakes are high in shaping the human experience for decades to come. The United States must secure its competitive edge by driving innovation, developing the rules of the road, and establishing new global institutions and systems. This requires aggressive investment, scaling early insights, and leading in technology development. Roadrunner emphasizes the need for communities and individuals across the country to care about this global competition, as it is not only about securing America's future, but also about delivering economic growth, creating jobs, and preserving American values and principles in emerging technologies.
Building a Capital Supply Chain for Disruption
Roadrunner's venture studio model is essential in building a robust capital supply chain for disruptive technologies. They recognize the need to go beyond merely scaling existing corporations and technologies. By partnering with scientists in under-leveraged regions, Roadrunner focuses on de-risking lab technologies, identifying commercializable insights, and forming companies around them. This approach requires more resources and support to bridge the gap between research and commercialization. Roadrunner's goal is to build a network of venture studios nationwide, tailoring their approach to the unique needs and strengths of each community, while accelerating the development of disruptive companies across various critical technology sectors.
Adam Hammer, President and Co-Founder of Roadrunner Venture Studios, a new venture studio based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, joins The Realignment. Marshall and Adam discuss why America fell behind its rivals when it comes to developing emerging deep/frontier technologies, opportunities in quantum science, space, energy, advanced manufacturing, and clean tech, New Mexico's status as a past and future cradle of innovation, and how the "venture studio" model of company formation and funding can address the deep tech blind spots missed by traditional venture capital.
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