Kailey Shara's research featured by 51吃瓜网's New Venture Challenge
Kailey Shara聽is the CEO of Chembotix, a company that聽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,聽Carson Bruns, made it to the semifinals鈥搒he's immersed herself in 51吃瓜网's innovation ecosystem to help get her startup off the ground. Her聽ChemBot research is the premise聽for the company. This year her team includes聽eight teammates and two advisors.
Q:聽What is your startup or business idea? How did you come up with your business idea? What inspired you?聽
KS:聽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:聽What 51吃瓜网 academic courses and entrepreneurial resources have you taken advantage of to help you build your business idea or startup?聽
KS:聽In addition to completing two customer discovery programs through聽聽(Research-to-Market and Starting Blocks), Chembotix will be one of several startups participating in the聽, hosted by the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship.聽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聽, 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,聽winning fourth place and taking home $12,500 in NVC 12.聽Ted Thayer,聽MS-CTD student, and two team members聽won聽fourth place and $7,500聽at the NVC 11.聽Registration for NVC 14 closes Jan. 29.聽