Deep tech

Alexander, welcome to KP Unpacked.

Listeners, Deep Tech has entered the chat.

Happy to join.

Love talking about batteries.

She's raising $3 million.

Do you remember when we had a dry spell where no deep tech companies had ever gotten funding on our show?

I do remember that vividly.

[laughs]

Yes

... which is insane, and that was the moment that I realized [laughs] that you all listening love science.

You love deep tech.

Yeah.

So what are the larger or other macro or micro signals that you're seeing right now or have seen in the last few months which gives you either encouragement or cause for concern?

I think one, a lot of encouragement is coming from the way deep manufa- deep tech manufacturing is emerging We are seeing many entrepreneurs in our existing portfolio as well as IPO market, which are globally competitive.

Uh, I think one big difference which is emerging is that courtesy artificial intelligence, the knowledge gap in doing a research or innovation is getting shrink quite rapidly.

We have invested in a company where they're aiming for something which globally only two or three people make, and I said, "How will you get the knowledge?" And he said like, "70, 80% I'll get from AI."

What was a proprietary knowledge in a research laboratory of a company is today available in a artificial intelligent world.

And balance 23% will work around it.

So this commitment to deep tech manufacturing excellence, thinking globe as your stage is very, very encouraging.

What is, uh, worrying me, uh, will we take tough decisions for reform? The land reform, the labor reform, the colonization on deep technology, how will we overcome that? I think that's something which we'll have to keep in mind.

I think the hardest slide is like the what you do, because I think it's easy to say we deliver to the kidney as what we do, but then or the how you do it is what I really am trying to get at.

Like how you do something is the hardest to explain in deep tech in general, I think.

And so I think in the first draft, I didn't even have that at all.

I was like, oh, we just deliver to the kidney.

And it's like, well, like you know you could be making that up like how do you do it right and so like i think that was the hardest part of like the ai piece but like we're not just using software right we're also actually in a lab or like a proper biotech in that sense but like so how do you explain the business model yeah i think business model and then specifically the how of how your product works in deep tech are sort of more difficult in the pharma space maybe like in other deep techs like how you sell is a little more straightforward like oh we make rockets we sell them to the government we sell them to whoever.

But I think with health care, it's just a little bit more nuanced.

Yeah.

So then I remember that in one of our sessions, you were like, is that a pilot? I was like, yeah, that's exactly what it is.

In fact, in the short term, it's going to create problems because we'll need all this additional electricity to run these data centers.

So I would say the secret is to support the hard tech behind clean tech.

And there's a reason why the word hard is in that word, because it's much harder.

It takes on more risk.

So if we are able to do that, I believe this will happen.

No, and you know, I think also, Chris, the, you know, the word that we keep talking about is deep tech innovation in India is missing or not happening at this scale.

Yes.

Because those companies are actually invest- I mean, completely innovating, right? And, and in areas that can, you know, reward the country immensely even over a longer term period.

So that's also an ecosystem play.

So when you use the word deep tech and you look India and the ecosystem today, and again, you know, over a 20 year frame, how, how do you see that evolving and how critical is it?

It's very, very critical.

You know, I was very glad when Skyroot, uh, launched Vikram 1.

Bold ideas, fresh perspectives, and the strategies you can actually use.

Today, I'm really excited to be joined by Evie Rose Dien from Talentful, who has helped scale some of the biggest AI and deep tech companies out there.

And we are diving into what it's really like and what it really takes to build those types of teams in these fast-growing, innovative environments.

Evie, welcome to the podcast.

Yeah, so I'm Evie.

I am a VP of the US.

I look after our AI and deep tech portfolio.

I made my start in AI and deep tech in 2019.