Democratizing Proteins: Michael Chen on Perseverance, Pivots, and Turning Years into Hours
Michael Chen, co-founder and CEO of Nuclera, reflects on how a PhD lab frustration grew into a $140M biotech venture. He shares the company’s near-death moments, the pivot that unlocked its future, and how making proteins accessible in hours is set to transform science and drug discovery
Founded in 2013 at the University of Cambridge by Michael Chen, Jiahao Huang and Gordon Herling‑McInroy, Nuclera set out with a bold mission: to democratize access to proteins by turning what was once a months‑long process into a benchtop-ready technology. From the frustration of protein inaccessibility during their academic work, they developed the eProtein Discovery™ system – a compact, automated device capable of expressing and purifying milligram‑scale proteins in under 48 hours using digital microfluidics, quality assays, and cell‑free synthesis. To date, Nuclera has raised over $140 million and their platform is now deployed in leading academic institutions, CROs, and biotech labs around the world.
At the helm is Dr Michael Chen, who has a PhD in Chemistry from NIH/University of Cambridge, alongside a BSc from Georgia Tech. Over the past decade, he has led Nuclera through research translation, product development, global scale‑up, and fundraising—growing the team to over 100 staff across UK and US sites.
Michael is now based in the US, and I met him briefly in London during a recent visit before this interview.
Hassan: So how was the trip back from the UK?
Michael: It was great. I came back and had a very busy holiday after that. Went to Puerto Rico and been back for a couple of weeks now.
H: So Michael, if I can just start from the very beginning to get to know what Nuclera does. For someone outside biotech, “protein access” doesn’t sound like an obvious problem. How do you explain what Nuclera solves?
M: I usually compare it to complex manufacturing. Think of how difficult it is to make rockets or cars. Proteins are just as complex — except instead of metal parts, you’re piecing together chains of 20 different amino acids, each folding into precise 3D structures. That complexity makes proteins hard to manufacture.
DNA, by contrast, is relatively simple — four building blocks that form the double helix. Proteins are the actual machines of biology, but making them can take months or years. During my PhD, it took me three and a half years to produce just one protein. With Nuclera, we make proteins accessible: faster, cheaper, and easier.
H: Okay, so essentially, streamline the whole process to give access to the proteins that academics and researchers want to work with. Got it. And why does this matter beyond academia?
M: Most people actually don't ask me that question. They get that protein work is complex, but what they fail to grasp is why are you doing this? Take ibuprofen — how does ibuprofen make you feel better? It works by binding to a protein in your body. And for pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs, they need to make the protein that they want to target in your body to make you feel better. They need to make it outside of your body. They need to manufacture that protein. And therein lies the challenge of manufacturing that protein to develop a new drug. You don't want to take three and a half years to make that protein. You want to do that in 24 hours. And that's what you do through Nuclera protein discovery system.
H: So when you were doing your PhD, obviously, you encountered the problem yourself. But did you build Nuclera out of the problem you were facing because of the frustration with current protein access and manufacturing, or did you also always have in the back of your mind that you actually wanted to build a company? Did you always have that entrepreneurial spark?
M: I always wanted to be in a startup. I started undergrad aiming to be a doctor — the classic immigrant family expectation. But I fell in love with research at Georgia Tech, then pursued a PhD in structural biology at Cambridge.
There, I met my co-founders in an entrepreneurial environment. Cambridge really is one of the best places in the world to start a biotech company, with the mix of talent, seed funding, and government incentives. Initially, we focused on DNA synthesis. But as costs dropped dramatically, we pivoted to proteins in 2020. That’s when the vision really clicked.
H: Was that pivot difficult?
M: Absolutely. We had great DNA synthesis technology, but we couldn’t make it dramatically cheaper, and cost is everything. Think of next-gen sequencing: it succeeded because it was 10 million-fold cheaper. Without that level of impact, you don’t have a business. With proteins, though, the pain point was still there. That’s where our eProtein Discovery platform could deliver.
H: Many academic founders struggle with the transition from science to business. How was that shift for you?
M: It was a steep learning curve. In academia, if something takes three times longer, the only consequence is frustration - the grant still pays your salary. In a startup, if it takes three times longer, you run out of money and start letting people go.
I had to learn to focus on customer needs, not just what I personally found exciting. Customers may say they want speed, but when you ask if they’d pay more for it, they often reply, “Actually, I need it cheaper.” So you need to validate not just what people want, but what they’ll pay for.
And then there’s manufacturing. In academia you invent once. In a company, you need to reproduce that invention reliably, at scale, while making money. That mindset shift was critical.
H: When you were taking the idea from the lab to the world, that's almost taking your baby out to the world right? What surprised you most when you first went out to customers and investors?
M: That gap between what people say and what they’ll pay for. Initially, my favorite quote from someone was when I asked, what's the most important thing to you? ‘’Speed’’. Oh, okay, right. How much more would you pay for it? ‘’No, actually we want it cheaper’’. That's what quite a few customers said, the most important thing I can improve is speed. Well, how much more would you pay for it? ‘’Actually, I wouldn't. I only have so much budget, I need it to be cheaper’’. So then I'm like, oh, so you actually just want it cheaper? And they're like, yeah, but speed is really important. And so would you rather take 10x faster or 10x cheaper? ‘’Oh, 10x cheaper, definitely’’. So that's a very important learning point when you talk to people and they say they want something, and then you go develop something that's 10x faster but 100x more expensive, and no one wants it. That's a very important learning point. And when a founder is going out there and thinking about how to improve something, they have to figure out how to improve it relative to the budgets of their customers. It's really quite critical. And if their customers don't have a budget, or there are not enough customers with a budget, then there's something critically wrong or fundamentally wrong in that business plan. And so that's why typically people from the sector succeed versus people from outside of that sector, because you need to have some intuitive knowledge about the sector that you're going to tackle.
H: So Michael, I want to ask you about your first fundraising. You obviously started off, I think, with some angels from the Cambridge ecosystem. And then you raised the institutional funding.
M: So we originally founded in 2013. That was also the first year of our PhDs. That’s when we got angel investment. So we were part-time. I graduated in 2017, so I wasn't full-time at Nuclera until mid-2017, something like that, or late 2017. And all of our co-founders around that time as well, some earlier in 2016, but we only raised our first institutional financing round in 2019.
H: Wow, interesting. So how did you get some of the institutional investors to back a bunch of PhDs with a very ambitious vision?
M: We didn't. That's why it took until 2019 to raise our first institutional funding round. We had to have proof, concept, prototypes, etc. Thanks to Cambridge’s tax incentives (SEIS), and Innovate UK grants, we managed to build prototypes. But institutional investors didn’t back us until 2019 - once we had proof of concept. I genuinely think Nuclera has been one of the best uses of Innovate UK funding. We turned a relatively small amount of government cash into over 100 UK jobs.
H: Was there a moment you thought Nuclera might not make it?
M: Yes: 2018. Before our Series A, we ran out of money. We were flat broke. The only reason we survived was because investors like Barnaby Martin and Alex Guo believed in us. Without them, Nuclera wouldn’t exist today.
Those transitions between rounds are always the hardest. You get close to the runway edge every time. You know, I see a lot of founders who are just like, ‘’there are a lot of sources for cash. I'm the one who actually makes the company successful. And investors are just providing cash, blah, blah, blah''. But investors actually have to take a lot of risk. They put their careers on the line in order to invest in you. So I'm forever grateful to my investors because without that, I would not be where I am today.
H: On the flip side, one of the widely accepted beliefs is that founding a successful company involves a mix of luck and timing, right? So I'm quite curious to know, in your view, what was the lucky break or unexpected event early on that made a big difference for Nuclera?
M: Meeting the E-Ink team. They had digital microfluidics technology, and we ended up combining companies. That partnership made it possible to raise our A, B, and C rounds.
H: Looking ahead, in 10 years time, how do you think Nuclera will change the way science is done?
M: We want all protein science to start with Nuclera. The research-use protein market is about $1.5 billion - if Nuclera is the entry point for all of that, that’s transformative.
H: Every drug discovery happens with Nuclera, essentially.
M: Exactly. In ten years, I want scientists to take protein access for granted. Instead of thinking, “Can we even make this protein?”, they’ll just say, “Nuclera handles that, now let’s focus on the next challenge.” That’s how we change science.
H: And on a personal level, what have you learned about yourself as a founder?
M: That Nuclera is better when it’s not the most important thing in my life. Many founders conflate their identity with the company, which can be unhealthy. It keeps my decisions less ego-driven and more balanced. I enjoy Nuclera more, and I feel like I'm more productive and a better leader for Nuclera by making sure that Nuclera is not the most important thing in my life. And it almost creates a sort of boundary and space. I feel like a lot of founders associate their own beings with the company, which often is not good for the well-being of the company. I am getting married in September, and so my personal life is the most important thing in my life. And that was not always the case. And I think the biggest surprise to me is that I was able to go through that transition where I feel like it's better for the company. And for certain founders, that can mean that they feel less enthusiastic or feel less passionate about the company. That hasn't happened to me. It makes me only want to work in Nuclera more, do more things, and feel more passionate for the company. I think it's healthy to create that distance.
H: Finally, what advice would you give to scientists thinking of starting a company?
M: Don’t get lost in the technology. Focus on the customer. Why will they buy from you? If the answer is just “it’s faster,” that’s not enough. Validate the “why” and the willingness to pay before you build.
And surround yourself with mentors. I’ve been fortunate to have people like Mike McCreary from E-Ink and Jonathan Milner, founder of Abcam, on our board. They’ve challenged and guided me every step of the way.
You can learn more about Nuclera here: https://www.nuclera.com/
Founded in 2013 at the University of Cambridge by Michael Chen, Jiahao Huang and Gordon Herling‑McInroy, Nuclera set out with a bold mission: to democratize access to proteins by turning what was once a months‑long process into a benchtop-ready technology. From the frustration of protein inaccessibility during their academic work, they developed the eProtein Discovery™ system – a compact, automated device capable of expressing and purifying milligram‑scale proteins in under 48 hours using digital microfluidics, quality assays, and cell‑free synthesis. To date, Nuclera has raised over $140 million and their platform is now deployed in leading academic institutions, CROs, and biotech labs around the world.
At the helm is Dr Michael Chen, who has a PhD in Chemistry from NIH/University of Cambridge, alongside a BSc from Georgia Tech. Over the past decade, he has led Nuclera through research translation, product development, global scale‑up, and fundraising—growing the team to over 100 staff across UK and US sites.
Michael is now based in the US, and I met him briefly in London during a recent visit before this interview.
Hassan: So how was the trip back from the UK?
Michael: It was great. I came back and had a very busy holiday after that. Went to Puerto Rico and been back for a couple of weeks now.
H: So Michael, if I can just start from the very beginning to get to know what Nuclera does. For someone outside biotech, “protein access” doesn’t sound like an obvious problem. How do you explain what Nuclera solves?
M: I usually compare it to complex manufacturing. Think of how difficult it is to make rockets or cars. Proteins are just as complex — except instead of metal parts, you’re piecing together chains of 20 different amino acids, each folding into precise 3D structures. That complexity makes proteins hard to manufacture.
DNA, by contrast, is relatively simple — four building blocks that form the double helix. Proteins are the actual machines of biology, but making them can take months or years. During my PhD, it took me three and a half years to produce just one protein. With Nuclera, we make proteins accessible: faster, cheaper, and easier.
H: Okay, so essentially, streamline the whole process to give access to the proteins that academics and researchers want to work with. Got it. And why does this matter beyond academia?
M: Most people actually don't ask me that question. They get that protein work is complex, but what they fail to grasp is why are you doing this? Take ibuprofen — how does ibuprofen make you feel better? It works by binding to a protein in your body. And for pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs, they need to make the protein that they want to target in your body to make you feel better. They need to make it outside of your body. They need to manufacture that protein. And therein lies the challenge of manufacturing that protein to develop a new drug. You don't want to take three and a half years to make that protein. You want to do that in 24 hours. And that's what you do through Nuclera protein discovery system.
H: So when you were doing your PhD, obviously, you encountered the problem yourself. But did you build Nuclera out of the problem you were facing because of the frustration with current protein access and manufacturing, or did you also always have in the back of your mind that you actually wanted to build a company? Did you always have that entrepreneurial spark?
M: I always wanted to be in a startup. I started undergrad aiming to be a doctor — the classic immigrant family expectation. But I fell in love with research at Georgia Tech, then pursued a PhD in structural biology at Cambridge.
There, I met my co-founders in an entrepreneurial environment. Cambridge really is one of the best places in the world to start a biotech company, with the mix of talent, seed funding, and government incentives. Initially, we focused on DNA synthesis. But as costs dropped dramatically, we pivoted to proteins in 2020. That’s when the vision really clicked.
H: Was that pivot difficult?
M: Absolutely. We had great DNA synthesis technology, but we couldn’t make it dramatically cheaper, and cost is everything. Think of next-gen sequencing: it succeeded because it was 10 million-fold cheaper. Without that level of impact, you don’t have a business. With proteins, though, the pain point was still there. That’s where our eProtein Discovery platform could deliver.
H: Many academic founders struggle with the transition from science to business. How was that shift for you?
M: It was a steep learning curve. In academia, if something takes three times longer, the only consequence is frustration - the grant still pays your salary. In a startup, if it takes three times longer, you run out of money and start letting people go.
I had to learn to focus on customer needs, not just what I personally found exciting. Customers may say they want speed, but when you ask if they’d pay more for it, they often reply, “Actually, I need it cheaper.” So you need to validate not just what people want, but what they’ll pay for.
And then there’s manufacturing. In academia you invent once. In a company, you need to reproduce that invention reliably, at scale, while making money. That mindset shift was critical.
H: When you were taking the idea from the lab to the world, that's almost taking your baby out to the world right? What surprised you most when you first went out to customers and investors?
M: That gap between what people say and what they’ll pay for. Initially, my favorite quote from someone was when I asked, what's the most important thing to you? ‘’Speed’’. Oh, okay, right. How much more would you pay for it? ‘’No, actually we want it cheaper’’. That's what quite a few customers said, the most important thing I can improve is speed. Well, how much more would you pay for it? ‘’Actually, I wouldn't. I only have so much budget, I need it to be cheaper’’. So then I'm like, oh, so you actually just want it cheaper? And they're like, yeah, but speed is really important. And so would you rather take 10x faster or 10x cheaper? ‘’Oh, 10x cheaper, definitely’’. So that's a very important learning point when you talk to people and they say they want something, and then you go develop something that's 10x faster but 100x more expensive, and no one wants it. That's a very important learning point. And when a founder is going out there and thinking about how to improve something, they have to figure out how to improve it relative to the budgets of their customers. It's really quite critical. And if their customers don't have a budget, or there are not enough customers with a budget, then there's something critically wrong or fundamentally wrong in that business plan. And so that's why typically people from the sector succeed versus people from outside of that sector, because you need to have some intuitive knowledge about the sector that you're going to tackle.
H: So Michael, I want to ask you about your first fundraising. You obviously started off, I think, with some angels from the Cambridge ecosystem. And then you raised the institutional funding.
M: So we originally founded in 2013. That was also the first year of our PhDs. That’s when we got angel investment. So we were part-time. I graduated in 2017, so I wasn't full-time at Nuclera until mid-2017, something like that, or late 2017. And all of our co-founders around that time as well, some earlier in 2016, but we only raised our first institutional financing round in 2019.
H: Wow, interesting. So how did you get some of the institutional investors to back a bunch of PhDs with a very ambitious vision?
M: We didn't. That's why it took until 2019 to raise our first institutional funding round. We had to have proof, concept, prototypes, etc. Thanks to Cambridge’s tax incentives (SEIS), and Innovate UK grants, we managed to build prototypes. But institutional investors didn’t back us until 2019 - once we had proof of concept. I genuinely think Nuclera has been one of the best uses of Innovate UK funding. We turned a relatively small amount of government cash into over 100 UK jobs.
H: Was there a moment you thought Nuclera might not make it?
M: Yes: 2018. Before our Series A, we ran out of money. We were flat broke. The only reason we survived was because investors like Barnaby Martin and Alex Guo believed in us. Without them, Nuclera wouldn’t exist today.
Those transitions between rounds are always the hardest. You get close to the runway edge every time. You know, I see a lot of founders who are just like, ‘’there are a lot of sources for cash. I'm the one who actually makes the company successful. And investors are just providing cash, blah, blah, blah''. But investors actually have to take a lot of risk. They put their careers on the line in order to invest in you. So I'm forever grateful to my investors because without that, I would not be where I am today.
H: On the flip side, one of the widely accepted beliefs is that founding a successful company involves a mix of luck and timing, right? So I'm quite curious to know, in your view, what was the lucky break or unexpected event early on that made a big difference for Nuclera?
M: Meeting the E-Ink team. They had digital microfluidics technology, and we ended up combining companies. That partnership made it possible to raise our A, B, and C rounds.
H: Looking ahead, in 10 years time, how do you think Nuclera will change the way science is done?
M: We want all protein science to start with Nuclera. The research-use protein market is about $1.5 billion - if Nuclera is the entry point for all of that, that’s transformative.
H: Every drug discovery happens with Nuclera, essentially.
M: Exactly. In ten years, I want scientists to take protein access for granted. Instead of thinking, “Can we even make this protein?”, they’ll just say, “Nuclera handles that, now let’s focus on the next challenge.” That’s how we change science.
H: And on a personal level, what have you learned about yourself as a founder?
M: That Nuclera is better when it’s not the most important thing in my life. Many founders conflate their identity with the company, which can be unhealthy. It keeps my decisions less ego-driven and more balanced. I enjoy Nuclera more, and I feel like I'm more productive and a better leader for Nuclera by making sure that Nuclera is not the most important thing in my life. And it almost creates a sort of boundary and space. I feel like a lot of founders associate their own beings with the company, which often is not good for the well-being of the company. I am getting married in September, and so my personal life is the most important thing in my life. And that was not always the case. And I think the biggest surprise to me is that I was able to go through that transition where I feel like it's better for the company. And for certain founders, that can mean that they feel less enthusiastic or feel less passionate about the company. That hasn't happened to me. It makes me only want to work in Nuclera more, do more things, and feel more passionate for the company. I think it's healthy to create that distance.
H: Finally, what advice would you give to scientists thinking of starting a company?
M: Don’t get lost in the technology. Focus on the customer. Why will they buy from you? If the answer is just “it’s faster,” that’s not enough. Validate the “why” and the willingness to pay before you build.
And surround yourself with mentors. I’ve been fortunate to have people like Mike McCreary from E-Ink and Jonathan Milner, founder of Abcam, on our board. They’ve challenged and guided me every step of the way.
You can learn more about Nuclera here: https://www.nuclera.com/
Founded in 2013 at the University of Cambridge by Michael Chen, Jiahao Huang and Gordon Herling‑McInroy, Nuclera set out with a bold mission: to democratize access to proteins by turning what was once a months‑long process into a benchtop-ready technology. From the frustration of protein inaccessibility during their academic work, they developed the eProtein Discovery™ system – a compact, automated device capable of expressing and purifying milligram‑scale proteins in under 48 hours using digital microfluidics, quality assays, and cell‑free synthesis. To date, Nuclera has raised over $140 million and their platform is now deployed in leading academic institutions, CROs, and biotech labs around the world.
At the helm is Dr Michael Chen, who has a PhD in Chemistry from NIH/University of Cambridge, alongside a BSc from Georgia Tech. Over the past decade, he has led Nuclera through research translation, product development, global scale‑up, and fundraising—growing the team to over 100 staff across UK and US sites.
Michael is now based in the US, and I met him briefly in London during a recent visit before this interview.
Hassan: So how was the trip back from the UK?
Michael: It was great. I came back and had a very busy holiday after that. Went to Puerto Rico and been back for a couple of weeks now.
H: So Michael, if I can just start from the very beginning to get to know what Nuclera does. For someone outside biotech, “protein access” doesn’t sound like an obvious problem. How do you explain what Nuclera solves?
M: I usually compare it to complex manufacturing. Think of how difficult it is to make rockets or cars. Proteins are just as complex — except instead of metal parts, you’re piecing together chains of 20 different amino acids, each folding into precise 3D structures. That complexity makes proteins hard to manufacture.
DNA, by contrast, is relatively simple — four building blocks that form the double helix. Proteins are the actual machines of biology, but making them can take months or years. During my PhD, it took me three and a half years to produce just one protein. With Nuclera, we make proteins accessible: faster, cheaper, and easier.
H: Okay, so essentially, streamline the whole process to give access to the proteins that academics and researchers want to work with. Got it. And why does this matter beyond academia?
M: Most people actually don't ask me that question. They get that protein work is complex, but what they fail to grasp is why are you doing this? Take ibuprofen — how does ibuprofen make you feel better? It works by binding to a protein in your body. And for pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs, they need to make the protein that they want to target in your body to make you feel better. They need to make it outside of your body. They need to manufacture that protein. And therein lies the challenge of manufacturing that protein to develop a new drug. You don't want to take three and a half years to make that protein. You want to do that in 24 hours. And that's what you do through Nuclera protein discovery system.
H: So when you were doing your PhD, obviously, you encountered the problem yourself. But did you build Nuclera out of the problem you were facing because of the frustration with current protein access and manufacturing, or did you also always have in the back of your mind that you actually wanted to build a company? Did you always have that entrepreneurial spark?
M: I always wanted to be in a startup. I started undergrad aiming to be a doctor — the classic immigrant family expectation. But I fell in love with research at Georgia Tech, then pursued a PhD in structural biology at Cambridge.
There, I met my co-founders in an entrepreneurial environment. Cambridge really is one of the best places in the world to start a biotech company, with the mix of talent, seed funding, and government incentives. Initially, we focused on DNA synthesis. But as costs dropped dramatically, we pivoted to proteins in 2020. That’s when the vision really clicked.
H: Was that pivot difficult?
M: Absolutely. We had great DNA synthesis technology, but we couldn’t make it dramatically cheaper, and cost is everything. Think of next-gen sequencing: it succeeded because it was 10 million-fold cheaper. Without that level of impact, you don’t have a business. With proteins, though, the pain point was still there. That’s where our eProtein Discovery platform could deliver.
H: Many academic founders struggle with the transition from science to business. How was that shift for you?
M: It was a steep learning curve. In academia, if something takes three times longer, the only consequence is frustration - the grant still pays your salary. In a startup, if it takes three times longer, you run out of money and start letting people go.
I had to learn to focus on customer needs, not just what I personally found exciting. Customers may say they want speed, but when you ask if they’d pay more for it, they often reply, “Actually, I need it cheaper.” So you need to validate not just what people want, but what they’ll pay for.
And then there’s manufacturing. In academia you invent once. In a company, you need to reproduce that invention reliably, at scale, while making money. That mindset shift was critical.
H: When you were taking the idea from the lab to the world, that's almost taking your baby out to the world right? What surprised you most when you first went out to customers and investors?
M: That gap between what people say and what they’ll pay for. Initially, my favorite quote from someone was when I asked, what's the most important thing to you? ‘’Speed’’. Oh, okay, right. How much more would you pay for it? ‘’No, actually we want it cheaper’’. That's what quite a few customers said, the most important thing I can improve is speed. Well, how much more would you pay for it? ‘’Actually, I wouldn't. I only have so much budget, I need it to be cheaper’’. So then I'm like, oh, so you actually just want it cheaper? And they're like, yeah, but speed is really important. And so would you rather take 10x faster or 10x cheaper? ‘’Oh, 10x cheaper, definitely’’. So that's a very important learning point when you talk to people and they say they want something, and then you go develop something that's 10x faster but 100x more expensive, and no one wants it. That's a very important learning point. And when a founder is going out there and thinking about how to improve something, they have to figure out how to improve it relative to the budgets of their customers. It's really quite critical. And if their customers don't have a budget, or there are not enough customers with a budget, then there's something critically wrong or fundamentally wrong in that business plan. And so that's why typically people from the sector succeed versus people from outside of that sector, because you need to have some intuitive knowledge about the sector that you're going to tackle.
H: So Michael, I want to ask you about your first fundraising. You obviously started off, I think, with some angels from the Cambridge ecosystem. And then you raised the institutional funding.
M: So we originally founded in 2013. That was also the first year of our PhDs. That’s when we got angel investment. So we were part-time. I graduated in 2017, so I wasn't full-time at Nuclera until mid-2017, something like that, or late 2017. And all of our co-founders around that time as well, some earlier in 2016, but we only raised our first institutional financing round in 2019.
H: Wow, interesting. So how did you get some of the institutional investors to back a bunch of PhDs with a very ambitious vision?
M: We didn't. That's why it took until 2019 to raise our first institutional funding round. We had to have proof, concept, prototypes, etc. Thanks to Cambridge’s tax incentives (SEIS), and Innovate UK grants, we managed to build prototypes. But institutional investors didn’t back us until 2019 - once we had proof of concept. I genuinely think Nuclera has been one of the best uses of Innovate UK funding. We turned a relatively small amount of government cash into over 100 UK jobs.
H: Was there a moment you thought Nuclera might not make it?
M: Yes: 2018. Before our Series A, we ran out of money. We were flat broke. The only reason we survived was because investors like Barnaby Martin and Alex Guo believed in us. Without them, Nuclera wouldn’t exist today.
Those transitions between rounds are always the hardest. You get close to the runway edge every time. You know, I see a lot of founders who are just like, ‘’there are a lot of sources for cash. I'm the one who actually makes the company successful. And investors are just providing cash, blah, blah, blah''. But investors actually have to take a lot of risk. They put their careers on the line in order to invest in you. So I'm forever grateful to my investors because without that, I would not be where I am today.
H: On the flip side, one of the widely accepted beliefs is that founding a successful company involves a mix of luck and timing, right? So I'm quite curious to know, in your view, what was the lucky break or unexpected event early on that made a big difference for Nuclera?
M: Meeting the E-Ink team. They had digital microfluidics technology, and we ended up combining companies. That partnership made it possible to raise our A, B, and C rounds.
H: Looking ahead, in 10 years time, how do you think Nuclera will change the way science is done?
M: We want all protein science to start with Nuclera. The research-use protein market is about $1.5 billion - if Nuclera is the entry point for all of that, that’s transformative.
H: Every drug discovery happens with Nuclera, essentially.
M: Exactly. In ten years, I want scientists to take protein access for granted. Instead of thinking, “Can we even make this protein?”, they’ll just say, “Nuclera handles that, now let’s focus on the next challenge.” That’s how we change science.
H: And on a personal level, what have you learned about yourself as a founder?
M: That Nuclera is better when it’s not the most important thing in my life. Many founders conflate their identity with the company, which can be unhealthy. It keeps my decisions less ego-driven and more balanced. I enjoy Nuclera more, and I feel like I'm more productive and a better leader for Nuclera by making sure that Nuclera is not the most important thing in my life. And it almost creates a sort of boundary and space. I feel like a lot of founders associate their own beings with the company, which often is not good for the well-being of the company. I am getting married in September, and so my personal life is the most important thing in my life. And that was not always the case. And I think the biggest surprise to me is that I was able to go through that transition where I feel like it's better for the company. And for certain founders, that can mean that they feel less enthusiastic or feel less passionate about the company. That hasn't happened to me. It makes me only want to work in Nuclera more, do more things, and feel more passionate for the company. I think it's healthy to create that distance.
H: Finally, what advice would you give to scientists thinking of starting a company?
M: Don’t get lost in the technology. Focus on the customer. Why will they buy from you? If the answer is just “it’s faster,” that’s not enough. Validate the “why” and the willingness to pay before you build.
And surround yourself with mentors. I’ve been fortunate to have people like Mike McCreary from E-Ink and Jonathan Milner, founder of Abcam, on our board. They’ve challenged and guided me every step of the way.
You can learn more about Nuclera here: https://www.nuclera.com/