Turning your research into a deeptech company: HCVC Fellowship Q&A with Stanford Founders
Have you ever wondered what it would take to turn your research into a deep tech company?
Join us for a Stanford Founders Q&A session on science-driven entrepreneurship and pathways for students to prepare for building deep tech companies, with speakers from HCVC, an early stage venture capital firm that helps fearless founders looking to digitize, decarbonize, and defend society.
The HCVC Synthesis Fellowship is a 6-months part-time, remote, paid opportunity to discover the world of venture capital by helping us source, evaluate, and pursue deep tech startup investment opportunities.
Calling all PhDs and postdocs ready to break out of the lab and into the future. We’re connecting brilliant minds with frontier tech, cutting-edge startups, and the fast-paced world of venture capital!
Agenda
3:00-4:00pm Q&A on how to turn your research into a deep tech company.
Isabel Zhang (Investor) and Romain Lacombe (Venture Partner) at HCVC will share their experience turning advanced research into deep tech startups, in a Q&A session moderated by Francesco Marchioni of Stanford Founders.
4:00-4:30pm Information session for students interested in the HCVC Synthesis Fellowship.
Food & refreshments served.
About the HCVC Synthesis Fellowship
The HCVC Synthesis Fellowship is a 6-month programme designed to give exceptional scientists and engineers the opportunity to dive into the venture capital and startup ecosystem, collaborate with our investment team, and forge powerful connections within the entrepreneurial landscape.
Duration: 6 months (February to July/August 2025, can be extended).
Commitment: Fellows are paid a stipend and work up to 10 hours per week (remote).
Your role:
Support ecosystem and community building through (attending and organising) events
Source exciting startups and technologies.
Share your domain and technical knowledge.
Assist our team in reviewing startups.
Join founder calls and meeting.
Speaker bios
Isabel Zhang, PhD works as an early-stage investor at HCVC, a deep tech fund backing entrepreneurs who leverage breakthrough technology to digitize, automate and decarbonize the world. She obtained her PhD in Stem Cell and Developmental Biology at The Francis Crick Institute/UCL in London. Isabel initiated and dedicated her time, next to her PhD, to build the Crick Science Entrepreneur Network. Additionally, she is one of the founding members and former Co-Managing Director of Nucleate London, a global non-profit life science accelerator. Isabel’s mission is to create an ecosystem that empowers scientists and engineers to translate their research into impactful ventures. Isabel's curiosity about disruptive technologies has also led her to VC fellowships at Hummingbird Ventures, Foresite Labs and BlueYard Capital.
Romain Lacombe is an entrepreneur and technology investor advancing human and planetary health. He's a Venture Partner at HCVC where he focuses on AI, climate tech, and bio. Previously, he served as the founder and CEO of Plume Labs, an air quality monitoring company developing micro-sensors for airborne pollutants and a global AI forecasting platform for air pollution. He led the company from inception to its eventual acquisition by the AccuWeather group in 2022, to become its center for AI for climate and bring accurate weather and air quality forecasts to the 1.5 billion users it serves around the world. Romain is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique, Paris in Applied Maths and Physics, and studied Engineering Systems at MIT and Chemical Engineering at Stanford.
About HCVC
HCVC is a deep tech venture capital firm that helps founders tackle hard problems with capital, resources and collaboration. We invest in early stage (pre-seed and seed) companies across Europe and the US with offices in London, Paris and the Bay Area.
We have backed founders working on breakthrough technologies and solutions in robotics (Chef Robotics, Chiral, Cosmic Robotics), biotech (Orakl Oncology, Ark Biotech, QUiCKR Bio), space tech (Antaris, Radian), energy (Transmutex, Renaissance Fusion), computing (Eva, Navier) and climate tech (SPAN, atmio).