Herbert Boyer agreed to a ten-minute meeting. It lasted three hours. That is how Genentech tells the story of its beginning. In 1976, Bob Swanson approached Boyer, a biochemist at UCSF, about turning recombinant DNA into commercial products. Boyer and Stanford’s Stanley Cohen had helped develop the underlying technology. The opportunity was specific: could engineered bacteria become a way to manufacture medicines? The scientific work was promising. Building a company around it was another challenge. Genentech’s founders faced skepticism from both academic and business communities. What I find interesting is how Boyer approached that gap. He partnered with someone whose strengths complemented his own. Boyer brought scientific depth. Swanson focused on building the business. Recognizing that partnership was itself an entrepreneurial decision. The early work still had to prove that the idea could produce something useful. In 1977, researchers at UCSF and City of Hope, working with Genentech, demonstrated production of the human hormone somatostatin in bacteria. Recombinant human insulin followed. Genentech worked with Eli Lilly on the production process, and the FDA approved Humulin in 1982. A scientific method was becoming a route to making medicines. Boyer remained involved in the company as a vice president from 1976 to 1990. Decades later, in 2009, Roche agreed to pay approximately $46.8 billion for the Genentech shares it did not already own. But the entrepreneurial lesson starts much earlier than that transaction. We often ask whether a scientist can become a CEO. A more useful question may be: can this scientist recognize the commercial potential of the work, bring the right people together, and help build an organization around it? Boyer’s story makes that distinction tangible. He did not have to leave his scientific identity behind to help create a company that changed medicine. Which scientist-commercial partner combination would you add to this series? #EntrepreneurialScientists

Tomorrow night I’m joining the VC panel “Frontier Is the New Mainstream: What’s Next?” at the SF Tech Week VIP Closing Party, hosted by Synexis & Funding Breakthrough Lab with 600+ founders, investors and operators expected, plus press on site. Five VC - Evelyn YK Lee from Vine Ventures, Jorden Woods and Radhika Iyengar, Vinit Bhansali from Atrium Frontier, along with Dr. Pavel Vinitsky will discuss one question: deep tech, AI and hard problems have moved from the edge of venture to the center of it. What does that mean for where the next checks go? Join us: Friday, Oct 9 at 6 pm · 345 California St, SF 
RSVP here: go.synexis.io/sftw26riceberg(use RICEBERG20 for 20% OFF)

Four years of progress in Indian deep tech. Yet on international panels, I still hear the same three questions from global allocators. We have much better answers today. But the excitement has yet to translate into foreign capital flowing at the scale this ecosystem deserves. At @FundForumEvent Asia in Singapore, we discussed whether India is the next trillion-dollar wealth opportunity. These were the questions that stayed with me: “India has been a consumer story. What changed?” The technical talent was always there. What was missing was risk capital willing to back ambitious science—and role models showing founders that building globally competitive technology companies from India was possible. Four years ago, @_RicebergVC_ was among a handful of funds starting to invest in this space. Early investors helped address the capital gap. Founders did the harder work: building the companies that others could look up to. That combination is changing what the next generation believes it can build. “Who funds the next round, especially before meaningful revenue?” A fair question. Technical milestones can take years, and the capital required often rises well before revenue does. When we started, we had little expectation of domestic follow-on capital. We helped founders position themselves globally from day one: global customers, global partnerships and global investors. For many breakthrough technologies, that is a natural path. The market for a better propulsion system, semiconductor or medical technology extends far beyond the country where it was developed. We have seen this work in our portfolio. Domestic capital is also becoming more active, with the government’s RDI Fund adding another source of support. The next test is whether funding remains available through the long journey from technical validation to commercial scale. “How do investors exit?” This is where we still need a longer track record. But the answer depends on which investor—and which kind of company—we are talking about. Early investors can find liquidity through secondaries before a company reaches an IPO. We have facilitated secondary liquidity for our LPs and bought out early investors to increase our own holding. We have experienced both sides. Companies building a critical piece of a larger technology stack can attract strategic buyers. @Infineon’s acquisition of C2i Semiconductors is one example. Companies building toward category leadership may access public markets and use that capital to expand and consolidate. @ankit_ideaForge and @ideaforge_tech have helped establish that possibility for Indian deep tech founders. These paths exist. Now we need more examples, more realised returns and more evidence that they can be repeated. My takeaway: the ecosystem has moved faster than the international perception of it. Founders are building stronger companies. The funding options are expanding. Exit paths are taking shape. As investors, we need to make those proof points visible to global allocators—with tangible outcomes they can underwrite. Thank you to Flavio Melis for moderating, and Ashutosh Tiwari and Krushali Jagiwala for bringing the public-market perspective. The next chapter needs to turn growing conviction into capital.

Congratulations to the @isaraerospace team on the successful launch. 🚀 We need more of these in Europe. Europe has always had the technical talent, and it also has strong infrastructure to support ambitious moonshots (pun intended). However, what has held Europe back so far is the celebration of dreaming big and taking risks. The Isar team is setting a role model for this. I hope more ambitious founders will emerge from Europe and create an ecosystem where European entrepreneurs don't have to leave to dream big. Of course, we, at @_RicebergVC_, are putting our money where our mouth is. We have invested in European startups like @swisspod and many others. Unlike other global funds, we don't wait to invest until they go to the US. We want to empower founders at home, and we do this globally. We're probably the only early-stage deep tech fund in the world doing this. These achievements of a European startup prove that we are not being naive. Onwards and upwards. 🚀🚀 @Lino_Gandola

For 2,000 years, we have used a compass to navigate the world. Since then, we have built maps, sonar, and impressive systems like GPS. But guess what? We still cannot navigate well across more than 70% of the Earth. We tried to improve everything, but nobody ever thought: let’s build a better compass - one that not only gives us direction, but also tells us where we are. The @dirac_labs team, @birdman9550 and @anshu4321, is changing that. They are building a quantum magnetometer for underwater navigation, and I could not be more excited to be a part of opening up this whole new frontier. Let’s go! 🌊🌊