The following Q &A with Kailey Shara, ATLAS PhD student and a member of the Laboratory for Emergent Nanomaterials,听appeared in CU Boulder's New Venture Challenge (NVC) January 2021 newsletter.听 NVC, the university's cross-campus entrepreneurial program and competition, connects the CU Boulder campus with the Boulder community to develop and fund innovative听ideas. Participants attend听year-round events, network听and collaborate听with mentors to refine their ideas and form startup teams to pitch听for funding (up to $100,000!) at the NVC Championships.
Kailey Shara听is the CEO of Chembotix, a company that听is developing a robotic automation platform to dramatically speed up chemistry research and development. As a second-time NVC participant鈥搇ast year she and her advisor,听Carson Bruns, made it to the semifinals鈥搒he's immersed herself in CU Boulder's innovation ecosystem to help get her startup off the ground. Her听ChemBot research is the premise听for the company. This year her team includes听eight teammates and two advisors.
Q:听What is your startup or business idea? How did you come up with your business idea? What inspired you?听
KS:听Chemistry is a foundational science for many other disciplines. From pharmaceutical drugs to new materials, technological progress depends on the products of the chemical sciences. Chemistry research is, however, held back by the tedious labor required to synthesize new molecules. While pursuing my undergrad degrees in electrical engineering and chemistry, the engineer in me was struck by how manual most chemistry research still is. Frustrated by this reality, I decided to build my PhD around addressing the key technical challenges holding back the development of chemistry automation systems. Chembotix was born from this research in order to bring these nascent technologies to market.
Q:听What CU Boulder academic courses and entrepreneurial resources have you taken advantage of to help you build your business idea or startup?听
KS:听In addition to completing two customer discovery programs through听听(Research-to-Market and Starting Blocks), Chembotix will be one of several startups participating in the听, hosted by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship.听I strongly recommend all of these programs to other CU startups, as well as the frequent workshops and presentations hosted by Venture Partners. Finally, the private company VEX Robotics, in partnership with the听, has been supporting my research. Private companies love to help students incubate and develop ideas that may one day be commercialized; you never know who might be able to help you unless you ask!
ATLAS students have successfully competed in past NVCs, including the team co-led by Cody Candler, MS-CTD '20, and Ruhan Yang, MS-CTD student,听winning fourth place and taking home $12,500 in NVC 12.听Ted Thayer,听MS-CTD student, and two team members听won听fourth place and $7,500听at the NVC 11.听Registration for NVC 14 closes Jan. 29.听