The Engine - Building A Tough Tech Movement

The Engine, a venture capital firm founded in 2016 by MIT, aims to support and accelerate the development of companies and innovations that improve the world through science and technology.

Recently, Reed Sturtevant, General Partner at The Engine, joined host Justin Starbird on the RISE® Inside podcast to discuss the company's mission and how they are supporting the small business ecosystem for the most promising teams and breakthrough inventions solving some of today's most pressing concerns.

At The Engine, they believe that transforming the industry's foundations can unlock massive opportunities for a more sustainable and resilient world. Recognizing that a healthier population, a more accessible and adaptive society, and a more resilient world are all possible through science, engineering, and leadership, they are focusing their sights on Tough Tech coming from innovators, founders, and startups across human health, climate change, and advanced systems and infrastructure. 

"At the very beginning," Reed points out, "it felt like 'The Engine is just one firm. How much of a dent can we make in all of the problems that are out there?' We aimed to create and encourage an ecosystem to pull all of this together, so we intentionally designed our programs and the space to try to pull like-minded people together."

Bringing together the investment, government, academic, regulatory, and corporate communities, The Engine creates opportunities for their portfolio companies to learn from large corporations and industry leaders, as well as a chance for industry and government to learn from and collaborate with Tough Tech companies on how to build upon existing solutions. Together, the network can work towards removing barriers and paving a more direct route to commercialization and success for these forward-thinking businesses.

A constant source of innovation opportunities, Reed sees much potential for Tough Tech in the future.

For example, he points out, "there have been several decarbonization efforts where they rely on a carbon tax, or large corporations are often making a commitment to reduce our carbon footprint and are willing to pay a green premium, whether it's for electricity, or materials like cement and steel, or even something uneconomic on its own, like direct air carbon capture. Policies like the IRA and the Inflation Reduction Act can accelerate the development of some of these technologies.

"The hydrogen economy, but in a broader sense, energy storage and transportation is an area we're keeping an eye on. We definitely see a lot of interest in different forms of energy storage—the hydrogen economy using hydrogen or ammonia, or even aluminum as an energy store for moving. It's like converting renewable electricity into something you can transport. Something that we're also always looking at is people creating new kinds of electrolyzers for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity.

"We also believe there are some real opportunities in biomanufacturing, which could be used for things like carbon-neutral jet fuel. In its own way, at a platform level, improvements to some of the base technologies around biomanufacturing will have a lot of downstream positive benefits."

In building their portfolio, Reed points out that not only does The Engine perform outreach, but they also have an open-door policy. "We try to build strong relationships with research universities and large corporations, trying to understand what's being worked on in academia and the strategic needs of large customers. We maintain those types of relationships as best as we can. We also have a pretty welcoming front door. People can reach out to us in terms of investment. We have a whole team of associates and partners who are always looking over the material and taking short meetings. The more, the merrier!"

To hear more about The Engine, their mission, and how they're accelerating the Tough Tech small business ecosystem, listen to "The Engine's Role in the Small Business Startup Ecosystem with Reed Sturtevant," live now on the RISE® Inside podcast!