#StartupsEverywhere profile: Calvin Chin, Managing Partner, E14 Fund
This profile is part of #StartupsEverywhere, an ongoing series highlighting startup leaders in ecosystems across the country. This interview has been edited for length, content, and clarity.
Investing in researchers developing emerging technologies
E14 Fund is a venture capital firm working with MIT’s Media Lab to help deep tech startups with an MIT connection launch and scale their business—and donating a portion of its profits back into MIT. We spoke with E14’s co-founder and managing partner, Calvin Chin, to learn more about MIT’s startup community, trends in advanced manufacturing, and how the government might do a better job working with young companies.
Could you tell us about your background and how it led you to E14 Fund?
Community has always been at the heart of my journey. I was born and raised in an entrepreneurial, Chinese American community in Detroit. After college I moved to New York, where I taught math then worked in finance. But in New York I got involved with a startup and moved to Silicon Valley where I joined a second startup. From there, I spent ten years in China, which in 2004 had this emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem. Our first company was a semiconductor foundry, at a time when high-tech manufacturing was kind of new in China. And our second was a purpose-driven company focused on positive social impact. When you start something new in that context, when the rest of the community doesn't understand your idea, you really rely on a smaller network of peers for support.
When I came back to the United States in 2014, I’d been an investor for a while. My good friend, Habib, who's now my business partner and I were volunteering at MIT. There we found this amazing research community, driven by the potential impact of translating their work into the real world. And realized there was an opportunity to expand that community ethos through MIT alumni and across the country. And that led to E14. Our mandate is to be there for each other, wherever somebody is on their entrepreneurial journey. And our community goes beyond researchers and entrepreneurs, to the corporations, government entities, and other great collaborators from all around MIT. We share this ambitious vision of using science and technology to positively impact the world.
Can you tell us a bit more about E14 and its connection to the MIT Media Lab?
Both the partners in the fund have appointments at MIT Media Lab and we see supporting researchers and research as a natural upstream part of our jobs. We coach and mentor, offer advice and connections and try to take as much uncertainty and risk out of the first phases of translating work into impactful companies and for the company founders. As a fund, we're generalists. We just follow MIT’s amazing community. And a lot of what we are seeing now sits at an intersection of historic trends. In the 1980s, there was tremendous movement around digitization and software, with recommendation engines, personalization, and human-computer interfaces. Fast forward a decade, and topics like ubiquitous computing, wearables, and the Internet of Things (IoT) were at the forefront of MIT research. In the last ten years, there’s been a tremendous blossoming of biological innovation, whether synthetic biology, -omics, or better understanding human processes.
Now we are seeing a community of people building on all of this work and thinking across these different trends; thinking about complex systems that interact with these technologies. Likewise, when it comes to scaling impact, and implementing and applying the technology, there are all these complex systems that have to interact. And that is where we have been spending our time.
There are a few particular areas of focus. There’s a ton of related innovation in the future of manufacturing and sustainability, whether it’s automation, distributed manufacturing, sourcing, onshore logistics, or mobility. Similarly, bio-manufacturing has exciting potential, with in silico, computational biology, and lab automation platforms. There's also a ton of innovation in therapeutics and diagnostics, while downstream we see exciting work in telemedicine and new forms of healthcare delivery and administration. A last exciting trend has been climate related—whether that's energy generation and storage, renewables, or sustainability built on material science.
You mentioned your background in semiconductors and semiconductor manufacturing and supply chain are hot topics right now. Do you have thoughts on how startups could be involved in helping the government resolve current gaps?
There’s a lot of exciting movement from a policy perspective, with recent infrastructure proposals to invest in advanced manufacturing and semiconductors. But we need to couple that intervention with scaling. It's wonderful to see investment invigorating industry through tax incentives or encouraging foreign companies like Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) to build a fabrication plant in Arizona.
But we also need to marry that with continued commitment to upstream research. We want to have the most advanced technology, and not just bring in technology from Taiwan. At MIT, we see tremendous innovation in new ways to imagine semiconductor manufacturing and new forms of manufacturing, in general. There's an opportunity for the U.S. to support both. This past year has been a stark reminder that—for all of our justified concerns over other countries investing in their future in a way that might seem more strategic or robust—the most important technology of the last year and a half, like mRNA vaccines and Zoom conferencing, came from the U.S. Still, working fast to invent the vaccine isn’t enough. Thoughtfully deploying technology, building up the manufacturing capacity, and executing the operational components also needs support.
As far as the role startups can play, we work with companies that have large, early adopter customers, but they don't necessarily know how to engage with policymakers. The U.S. government is a wonderful customer for many businesses. But navigating the procurement process makes it difficult for startups to engage. A lot of companies would love to engage with the Department of Defense (DOD), Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and other nonmilitary agencies, but they don't have the right conduits and do not know the right approach. The Air Force has models to work with young companies; maybe there are ways to replicate and scale.
We know the Biden Administration has filled a lot of roles, but some key leadership positions remain empty. Do you have thoughts on what should guide the nomination of leaders, in support of a diverse and healthy startup ecosystem?
The Administration has been very well-intentioned in its goals of diversity and inclusion, making sure the government looks like the governed. And that's wonderful, but there's probably still more work to do. Certainly, as an Asian American, it has felt like there have not been as many senior candidates, and an Asian American nomination would resonate with me. That’s especially true in this environment, where there's been violence against Asians and tensions with China. Sometimes I think people who have some experience, both personally and professionally, might have a different point of view on those realities, and that could be vital.
E14 and MIT work with an international student population. Are there challenges foreign founders—including former students—face when navigating the immigration system, and do you have thoughts on how the government could better support international student entrepreneurs?
We’ve seen a lot of troubling challenges over the recent years. The previous DOJ’s China Initiative and questions surrounding Chinese scientists have cast a shadow over many foreign students’ interest in studying and working in the U.S. And that's really unfortunate. My family on both sides came here about four generations ago, and the story I’ve shared is only possible here. I think the same is true for many of the brightest minds that historically have wanted to come to MIT.
As a country, we invest so much in training these great people, through our research institutions, grants, and other awards. It's a shame we haven't thought through what to do with all that talent afterward. And for many years, to attract talent, we relied on the U.S. being the best place for any scientist to study and work. But now, there are great research institutions around the world, and other countries have policies to support them. Which creates more choices for scientists. So to the extent we can make it easier, with the proper screening of who enters, to allow talented scientists to enter and rely on our immigration policies, more talent would come here. Tech companies have created so many new jobs and so much economic value for this country, and many of them have immigrant roots.
Are there any tech startup issues E14’s companies encounter that you think should receive more attention from local, state, and federal policymakers?
Bio-manufacturing is an area of great opportunity for the U.S., and as a fund we've been making a lot of investments in that industry. And these are opportunities the U.S. could invest in heavily. Because this will become a huge stack of world-changing companies, for example in synthetic biology or cell-based manufacturing. One of the companies in our portfolio, Culture BioSciences, is building cloud-based bioreactors. They could be the next TSMC for these new industries, building the bioreactor capacity we need. Whether it's plant-based meats, new kinds of therapeutics, or petrochemical replacements, we will need a heck of a lot of bioreactors.
So it would be exciting for the U.S. government to explore not just trying to catch up with the last 20 years of advanced semiconductor manufacturing, but also thinking about how we stay ahead in emerging industries over the next 15 years.
What is on the horizon for E14?
The most exciting thing about our job is getting refreshed and reinvigorated by working with brilliant young companies and scientists across this incredible community. I would say the horizon is full of unbridled optimism, energy, and enthusiasm because these companies are reimagining our country’s capabilities and reshaping our future in a more equitable and sustainable way. They're not just talking about it; they’re rolling up their sleeves and doing it.
All of the information in this profile was accurate at the date and time of publication.
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