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Turning Research Into Billion-Dollar Startups · EU-Startups Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 0: You are now listening to the EU Startups
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Podcast.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to this special episode of The EU Startup's podcast!
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: We're here at A-Five X Conference in Singapore by Mitation, National University of Singapore.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Throughout these next few days we'll be chatting about innovation funding, and the developing bridge between Southeast Asia and Europe.
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: Not to mention The Singapore Defense Tech Hackathon whose winner is going show up at our very end of this series in a special episode.
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: So I hope you're looking forward to hear us talking about the challenges?
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: the innovation And how we are all comparing when it comes to localized markets such as Asia, Southeast Asia, and Europe Even global challenges not to mention lessons from each other.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: Okay, well thank you very much Benjamin for joining me here at the You Starves podcast.
• 0:59
  Speaker 1: It's a pleasure to have you on
• 1:01
  Speaker 0: likewise great to be here.
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: Great great.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I'm very excited to chat with you today because just having a look at your profile you have such a great balance between academic, researcher and entrepreneur.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: So that's something I think is going to resonate a lot with our audience because of well we have people who watch us as strict entrepreneurs or investors but many are involved in the academic system too.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: so personally it will be very good episode.
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: With that in mind maybe you can just give some background on what you're doing at this event?
• 1:28
  Speaker 0: Sure!
• 1:29
  Speaker 0: I'm Benjamin T., Vice President of Ecosystem Building at The National University of Singapore And i am zero entrepreneur now coming into my fourth company raised over twenty million US dollars and manages a lot more in terms of grant funding, it comes to research.
• 1:48
  Speaker 0: And I've been part of the academic community for long time and really wanted to bring the research papers transform them into products which led me down this rabbit hole.
• 1:59
  Speaker 0: being an entrepreneur It must say that you mentioned balance right?
• 2:04
  Speaker 0: It's actually hard to strike a balance and very often you're put in multiple directions.
• 2:10
  Speaker 0: But the way I think about it is if you are able create an impact from your ideas, that's what motivates me.
• 2:17
  Speaker 0: And the journey of being entrepreneurship... Of being an entrepreneur extremely challenging because we have faced extreme uncertainty.
• 2:25
  Speaker 0: You basically going from zero-to-one research gets you minus one to zero If you want.
• 2:31
  Speaker 0: use their analogy And then after that if you really want maximum impact, You need to bring the one-to-a million.
• 2:38
  Speaker 0: Million being at least having products reproduced and sold and used a million times over.
• 2:44
  Speaker 0: Now this is big challenge for most research focused training That typically academics come from What's happening today I feel Is there some massive change in how we think about research and its impact.
• 3:04
  Speaker 0: Many agencies today are looking at impacts both commercially as well as social, the way to bring impact to people is really take a next step.
• 3:17
  Speaker 0: going out of your lab talking about potential users seeing how technology can fit into their workflow in their lives Of course if it's life saving drives very obvious.
• 3:30
  Speaker 0: But many times the technology that you're so used to is highly integrated and as researchers we are often able to contribute a part of their assembly or new process, making it rigid.
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  Speaker 0: That should also be considered rather than just purely thinking about.
• 3:47
  Speaker 0: I have build a drug that saves lives.
• 3:51
  Speaker 0: Along the way, even in building a drug you have so many supporting technologies that we all as a research community can contribute to.
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  Speaker 0: That could end up helping save lives.
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  Speaker 0: So there are multiple second and third order effects.
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  Speaker 0: often people don't appreciate when trying to translate.
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  Speaker 1: Okay And looking into your own personal background here What do feel like you've brought from your backgrounds an entrepreneur and developer into academia?
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: because I read that you had developed an electronic skin, right?
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: So let's hear a little bit about what kind of experience taught and brought back into
• 4:31
  Speaker 0: it.
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  Speaker 0: The truth is actually started as an entrepreneur so at the full time i spun off company taking my research from lab to product And reason why did was because I realised that following patterns on shelves just didn't really motivate me.
• 4:47
  Speaker 0: even having fantastic publication was great.
• 4:51
  Speaker 0: But the feeling of satisfaction didn't last too long for me, right?
• 4:57
  Speaker 0: I mean it's great that people cite their work but in the end i hope to see people use technology which is why decided hey look only way can learn how be an entrepreneur actually being an entrepreneur.
• 5:08
  Speaker 0: so took about a year off found worked with team we got know each other over here under this program called Stanford by design where we found four hundred problems and we only choose one to work on.
• 5:23
  Speaker 0: Now I brought that up because my research in electronic skin has already spent fifteen years, right?
• 5:28
  Speaker 0: And when you think about for me i really want to take technology into the market.
• 5:34
  Speaker 0: a decade is little too long but just being on their journey of trying to bring a product or market in short span of year or two We got our products FDA cleared and obviously had lot different learnings from strategy.
• 5:47
  Speaker 0: how do they productize?
• 5:48
  Speaker 0: how do you talk to regulators, what really goes into building a product.
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  Speaker 0: Few people appreciate that and less so research academics okay?
• 5:58
  Speaker 0: And I think being full-time entrepreneur actually building the products could be put on shelves for people to buy.
• 6:06
  Speaker 0: it was critical in my say how i formulate my research program at The National University of Singapore.
• 6:16
  Speaker 0: In addition to following patterns, many of them are now being licensed much quicker within the span of a PhD student career.
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  Speaker 0: And that was actually what motivated me to go on this Stanford about design program To find problems.
• 6:30
  Speaker 0: is I realized by the time it graduated The patents were still kind of filed in some digital database.
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  Speaker 0: There's no action built into products people use and just wanted to short circuit And this one year founder journey really taught me what it takes to build a company from fundraising, from technology development.
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  Speaker 0: From standards and so on.
• 6:58
  Speaker 0: So I think that was super informative in then.
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  Speaker 0: how i think about my career as an academic In some sense like do things faster because I don't feel after many years left and really want to live at impact.
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  Speaker 0: And if you think about my career, I've actually really benefited also from the environment that I was in.
• 7:21
  Speaker 0: some people when they came back to Singapore asked me hey why do come back to singapore right?
• 7:24
  Speaker 0: i mean had high drop offers in estates very good ones...I felt like..i wanted it be a place where there is going to be growth.
• 7:32
  Speaker 0: Right!
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  Speaker 0: In some ways, Asia, Southeast Asia, Singapore have tremendous growth opportunities.
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  Speaker 0: Check, you know that my first angel investment took about a year for us to actually get the money.
• 7:51
  Speaker 0: then in My second company and after about After I nearly existed my first one.
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  Speaker 0: You know The first check came into week And now?
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  Speaker 0: The third company of the first track came in a day and number four my fourth Company people asking me to please start the company.
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  Speaker 0: So i think there's definitely tremendous growth In terms of risk appetite within Singapore and the broader regional ecosystem.
• 8:17
  Speaker 0: And the nice thing in Singapore has always been a place where people intermingle, people have a melting pot effect of merging ideas from different places.
• 8:31
  Speaker 0: I would say that environment is very supportive right?
• 8:35
  Speaker 0: Multiple levels.
• 8:36
  Speaker 0: you've got government society education institutes like National University of Singapore.
• 8:42
  Speaker 0: we are strong proponent diversity.
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  Speaker 0: We have a very diverse student population, so we've always been able to trade the best talent ideas and now bring technology into the mix.
• 8:55
  Speaker 0: And finally productisation capability.
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  Speaker 0: that is somewhat more challenging because Singapore's smaller than we don't have an immediate market within our shores.
• 9:08
  Speaker 0: but there are changes especially in high value deep technologies products and companies, example semiconductors.
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  Speaker 0: Singapore makes one in ten semiconductor chips for the world.
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  Speaker 0: They are massive investments now in semiconductor industry because of AI requirements.
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  Speaker 0: This will continue to drive a lot of research dollars And a lot translation efforts.
• 9:35
  Speaker 0: I think that Singapore as country The national university and rest of the ecosystem here is able to capitalise on our investments over the last twenty-over years.
• 9:48
  Speaker 0: Singapore started doing research seriously about twenty, twenty five years ago and we always had a five year plan called Research Innovation Enterprise Plan RIE right?
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  Speaker 0: And so now we are in the RIE.
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  Speaker 0: Twenty Thirty.
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  Speaker 0: So there's thirty six billion Singapore Dollars roughly thirty billion US dollars allocated in these five years, nearly twenty percent will be spent on innovation and enterprise type of efforts.
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  Speaker 0: And that considering the fact we have also been able to attract very high quality research talent at multiple levels full professors associate professors assistant professor postdocs PhD students master's.
• 10:36
  Speaker 0: I think there is a lot layers now our efforts to help research become products.
• 10:45
  Speaker 0: And in many ways, what I'll work at NUSX now is speed up that capability and the transformation.
• 10:56
  Speaker 0: so we hope every academic that can support will get their check-in less than a week if ideas worth doing If there's right technology or product market fit.
• 11:10
  Speaker 0: however it takes time.
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  Speaker 0: So we will have to help our research community understand how to do that effectively and over the last six, seven years NUS has actually invested to help create entrepreneurship programs around deep technology translation.
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  Speaker 0: We call Graduate Research Innovation Programme.
• 11:33
  Speaker 0: We've trained more than six hundred to seven hundred postdoctoral research level teams persons persons, probably teams.
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  Speaker 0: we have about two hundred that go into this program to figure out what's product market fit.
• 11:51
  Speaker 0: I took a year from my first company to figure it out whether there is even need for the products and then spend next year figuring how technology will meet their needs.
• 12:04
  Speaker 0: We hope to compress all of those with help of tools such as GenRiv AI and some agents, agent work flow effectively compress that timeline to test products in the market.
• 12:19
  Speaker 0: So this is how we are thinking about translation, I think We have to bring in The talent?
• 12:26
  Speaker 0: We had to bring In the facilities and we i must say Have some of the best research facilities in the world And we must be in the capital.
• 12:34
  Speaker 0: so today end with added many layers To strengthen the capacity for technology being developed from a research environment like the university.
• 12:45
  Speaker 0: And if you think about it, we are not exactly too far off in terms of our growth trajectory.
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  Speaker 0: We're actually faster and... In terms of capital growth also much faster than what we have seen in parts of the US.
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  Speaker 0: I Think that we can do it If we continue to build a framework and allow The talent to flourish when-if they want to translate.
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  Speaker 0: It's a choice.
• 13:15
  Speaker 0: Being an entrepreneur is a choice.
• 13:17
  Speaker 0: You have to choose to embrace highly uncertain environments, you have to chose to know that there's no right answers and I think sometimes the culture has to adapt to allow it happen.
• 13:32
  Speaker 0: most Asian societies tend to frown upon risk.
• 13:36
  Speaker 0: go for quite standard job.
• 13:39
  Speaker 0: don't follow crowd.
• 13:40
  Speaker 0: so something not straight forward easy fall That we grow up.
• 13:47
  Speaker 0: I grew out in to change and that takes people they're willing and daring enough to try.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: Okay, so you covered pretty completely the NUS kind of thesis and vision but there has to be then.
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  Speaker 1: I wonder The explanation for what about ideas?
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  Speaker 1: That aren't fit for market?
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  Speaker 1: Right, because an academic institution there's a lot of ideas and could this work?
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: Could this not work.
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  Speaker 1: How do you then as somebody who has had experience being entrepreneur getting things to market how do you address the idea that maybe isn't fit for markets.
• 14:23
  Speaker 0: I think thats great question And i think theres been some studies done actually on why companies succeed or fail.
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  Speaker 0: Most people thinks number one failure is the team or product.
• 14:37
  Speaker 0: Turns out that the number of failure is actually timing and Being a research university with very long-time horizons.
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  Speaker 0: We can absorb their risk.
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  Speaker 0: The question is whether it's the right time for the technology.
• 14:53
  Speaker 0: in A research setting we answer the questions, Can you do?
• 14:56
  Speaker 0: It does the science to physics chemistry And engineering allow you to prove That you can't do this covered by our research community.
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  Speaker 0: The next question is, are you able to repeat it?
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  Speaker 0: Not do at once but can we do ten times or a hundred times?
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  Speaker 0: and then the third phase is Can use skillet-can make million on this At right cost And its timing for market to absorb?
• 15:29
  Speaker 0: So I think that these questions don't have all answers too.
• 15:33
  Speaker 0: We provide environment research community for our talent to figure that out.
• 15:40
  Speaker 0: We provide them a framework to ask these kind of questions so when they translate, They can try and find success.
• 15:49
  Speaker 0: because what we hope is the iterations become scalable.
• 15:56
  Speaker 0: Iterations on products or technology becomes scalable cause it will give us lasting impact And i think diversity here in Singapore truly phenomenal.
• 16:08
  Speaker 0: You know, I think that there's so many pockets of excellence across healthcare, across quantum, across engineering and AI and in many others right?
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  Speaker 0: That i think the next phase is are we able to build a product as brings in the best off a few of these categories?
• 16:30
  Speaker 0: where we have peaks can you repeat it?
• 16:39
  Speaker 0: and then we bring in the right capital to say, Can You Scale It?
• 16:43
  Speaker 0: So its multi-faceted.
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  Speaker 0: There's no real answer.
• 16:47
  Speaker 0: I think as a country And As A University We have To Figure It Out!
• 16:51
  Speaker 0: We can look at reference points But You Never Step Into The Same River.
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  Speaker 0: Twice This river happens to be time so we will have to quickly determine what is best What works for our Country Given Our Constraints.
• 17:08
  Speaker 0: I think that we have to play it through our strengths, and we had many strengths going for us.
• 17:12
  Speaker 0: Stable consistent investment in developing education research talent.
• 17:19
  Speaker 0: That is the core foundation of what NUS is about.
• 17:23
  Speaker 0: Bring the best talent in Developing them so they can choose whatever career they chose.
• 17:28
  Speaker 0: They don't need to be entrepreneurial or they could support an entrepreneur But then get to realize impact their desire.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: Okay And you talk that your hopes for not only the academic system, but the national system and how you see Singapore shaping up.
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: That makes me kind of want to ask you a bit before we mentioned it came back to Singapore in twenty fourteen right?
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: Yes Right.
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  Speaker 1: So because...to us in Europe that actually matters alot.
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: And We are seeing this same thing.
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  Speaker 1: I think You're explaining Singapore In that we've had a lot talent.
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: go to US Developed themselves get a lot funding.
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: Then many have returned to Europe, to kind of develop their localized markets and build up what they can.
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: So how have you seen Singapore evolve in that time?
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Whether it's innovation whether it's the amount of funding available because that's also a large question for us Europeans as well
• 18:21
  Speaker 0: right?
• 18:21
  Speaker 0: Well I think European is having at least European.
• 18:24
  Speaker 0: uh i think in terms of the research and investment there's definitely having a renaissance period of sorts like this.
• 18:30
  Speaker 0: massive need now parts of society, aging security and also obviously AI.
• 18:41
  Speaker 0: I think what we are in a part of the world is obviously geographically very different.
• 18:51
  Speaker 0: We do see some of the heterogeneity in culture and language that I think Europe has a long history of innovation right?
• 19:01
  Speaker 0: And i think they're.
• 19:03
  Speaker 0: And European countries now can absolutely capitalise on the massive reinvestment back into their research community and translate.
• 19:14
  Speaker 0: The question in the end is, do you want many different companies with different approaches to solve the problem?
• 19:23
  Speaker 0: I can see that in the next decade or so the problem versus how do I get connected to somewhat a fraction of the cost.
• 19:38
  Speaker 0: Yeah, don't know if you want to pause it because you think about okay right so coffee machines is good need.
• 19:45
  Speaker 0: Coffee isn't
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: good innovation yeah.
• 19:48
  Speaker 0: So we share similarities but yet they are different and cannot exactly comment.
• 19:54
  Speaker 0: What i can tell what have learned in past three years as vice president of ecosystem building of entrepreneurship ecosystem building is that there's really three key factors, one is talent.
• 20:10
  Speaker 0: The other one is facilities and then the last is capital.
• 20:13
  Speaker 0: And you can as these are big buckets and they kind of have to drill down well depending on which stakeholder You are?
• 20:20
  Speaker 0: As investor or your political stakeholder.
• 20:22
  Speaker 0: Are you a research performer?
• 20:25
  Speaker 0: Right what do need?
• 20:27
  Speaker 0: and we had?
• 20:28
  Speaker 0: I think if you send a brief where he asked about friction points It's very simple.
• 20:34
  Speaker 0: The more you want of something, the less friction to have that will allow it happen and get faster.
• 20:44
  Speaker 0: So we had to find in each of these three buckets where are key friction points?
• 20:48
  Speaker 0: Every ecosystem has different challenges.
• 20:52
  Speaker 0: so I wouldn't say exactly because i was not involved in European Ecosystem although a big fan of what small countries like Denmark Netherlands know have done in advancing themselves and focusing on certain critical path.
• 21:10
  Speaker 0: In the technology development of modern systems, right?
• 21:13
  Speaker 0: Obviously as ML is one very clear example that had I would say The risk appetite and the persistence to say no will make it work.
• 21:29
  Speaker 0: And now they power They basically are in every single modern fab today, and they've created very high-value jobs.
• 21:39
  Speaker 0: High quality jobs engineering jobs difficult jobs that cannot easily be replaced.
• 21:46
  Speaker 0: So I think in some way we have to learn from European countries.
• 21:50
  Speaker 0: But we also have our constraints as an ecosystem.
• 21:53
  Speaker 0: We face the lack of a i would say deep capital market Lack of bigger Countries I would say companies, for example, Mitterstadt in Germany where there's a very large SME community.
• 22:15
  Speaker 0: However it sees signs that they're changing and i see that there is no interest in different companies of different sizes setting up around our region not just in Singapore but around the region.
• 22:29
  Speaker 0: we can benefit from them.
• 22:30
  Speaker 0: How?
• 22:31
  Speaker 0: Then Singapore has the most powerful passport in the world.
• 22:36
  Speaker 0: So if you're a Singapore bus, well it can travel anywhere pretty much without visa delays.
• 22:41
  Speaker 0: So that helps us right there.
• 22:43
  Speaker 0: so in one way they reduce the friction of us creating products and export.
• 22:48
  Speaker 0: then we have to figure out how do we get sales?
• 22:52
  Speaker 0: In an external market where might not know key players or decision makers?
• 22:58
  Speaker 0: these are many things as community ecosystem trying to figure this through repeated testing.
• 23:08
  Speaker 0: You know, the final product that gets sold on shelves goes to probably tens of thousands sometimes even millions of hours or testing like your phone before it's shipped right?
• 23:20
  Speaker 0: Before the tech-the process is implemented.
• 23:22
  Speaker 0: so in some way developing an ecosystem much much like the same except you're not making a physical product.
• 23:29
  Speaker 0: Your products are brand and people.
• 23:34
  Speaker 0: that goes into making the brand happen because it would have things people are waiting to pay for.
• 23:42
  Speaker 0: So I think at an abstract level, there's how you see it?
• 23:46
  Speaker 0: The growth around our region will continue and I'm glad I decided to come back in twenty fourteen.
• 23:52
  Speaker 0: I could've chosen a very different path.
• 23:55
  Speaker 0: It is much harder compared if i had stayed well-developed ecosystem but now we learn less.
• 24:03
  Speaker 0: That brings me to why I came back to university.
• 24:06
  Speaker 0: is that in the end, i'm not going to be able to carry another hundred years.
• 24:12
  Speaker 0: It's the next generation.
• 24:14
  Speaker 0: so my job now is to make sure the next-generation is prepared To meet even greater uncertainty of technology progress and how jobs will be like?
• 24:26
  Speaker 0: I sometimes draw that probably the best job you have it's the one that you create yourself And surprisingly this now seems.
• 24:34
  Speaker 0: likelihood of that happening is actually much, higher now.
• 24:38
  Speaker 0: Right?
• 24:38
  Speaker 0: Given the disruptive potential ability to serve intelligence in the end we have to answer the question are humans going to be smarter or less intelligent because of tools we use?
• 24:56
  Speaker 0: and we have choose the former which means we need better tool to augment ourselves not replace us.
• 25:05
  Speaker 0: To do that, I think you need to build products.
• 25:07
  Speaker 0: You need to be on top of the curve... ...of a learning curve and you have to be at the front here.
• 25:11
  Speaker 0: There are so many exciting frontiers now right?
• 25:15
  Speaker 0: If you think about it Quantum is obviously near horizon.
• 25:19
  Speaker 0: Singapore has invested in quantum before anybody had put into their investments.
• 25:24
  Speaker 0: The Centre for Quantum Technology's more than twenty years effort Started as Singapore and actually one of the earlier centres was in NUS Center for Quantum Technologies.
• 25:38
  Speaker 0: And then now we have a quantum engineering program, so I think that we realize that deep technology takes time and we are willing to take certain concerted bets like i said timing.
• 25:52
  Speaker 0: So as long you can last the long haul You will have chance of meeting your timing Find products in their era.
• 26:02
  Speaker 0: people want and is willing pay alot And they have that wealth if I recycle back into the ecosystem and Have more people willing and able to take risks.
• 26:15
  Speaker 0: If you look at mature ecosystems The GDP per capita right tends to higher.
• 26:23
  Speaker 0: GDP per capital tends to create Very large technologically entrenched companies Or companies then make very deep technology Right, and i think in some way Singapore.
• 26:37
  Speaker 0: we are lucky fortunate that we are definitely top three in terms of GDP per capita.
• 26:43
  Speaker 0: So now it's up to us as a university, to choose to help talents who might want to go down this path going from zero-to-one and one to a million.
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: Okay well I think that is good place for wrapup.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: thank you very much Benjamin.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: so pleasure having on.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: yeah its been very insightful.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Thank You!