- The Engine — which is a venture firm founded by MIT in 2016 — announced it has raised $230 million for the second round of funding. These are the details.
The Engine — which is a venture firm founded by MIT in 2016 — announced it has raised $230 million for the second round of funding. And with this funding, the venture firm will start making investments in startups focused on commercializing solutions to some of the world’s most pressing challenges.
MIT had provided $25 million in anchor funding for The Engine’s Fund I — which exceeded the original goal of raising $150 million to close at over $200 million in 2017. And MIT is investing $35 million toward this new round of funding The Engine Fund II.
MIT’s contributions to The Engine are part of an overall portfolio of investments intended to generate returns for the Institute’s general operating budget and cultivate the Cambridge innovation ecosystem. The funds are released over time as investments are made in tough tech companies.
Harvard University is joining MIT as a limited partner in The Engine’s second round of funding, thus furthering The Engine’s mission to provide capital and access to talent and vital specialized infrastructure for tough tech entrepreneurs.
So far, The Engine has invested in 27 portfolio companies tackling climate change and human health challenges like Covid-19. And The Engine’s initial investments include scientific proofs of concept and research publishing; product development and customer pilots; and follow-on funding and new intellectual property and patent filings.
Wastewater epidemiology company Biobot Analytics has deployed its Covid-19 monitoring platform to hundreds of communities across the U.S. to help them track the scope of the disease. And the company initially piloted its platform to monitor opioid use to help local public health efforts, but quickly pivoted as the Covid-19 pandemic spread across the country.
And Engine-supported companies E25Bio and C2Sense are also working on Covid-19 testing platforms. Plus Vaxess Technologies has recently released specifications for a Covid-19 single-dose and shelf-stable vaccine patch.
Somerville, Massachusetts-based Form Energy was one of The Engine’s first investments in 2017. And now the company is also backed by Bill Gates’ Breakthrough Energy Ventures and has reached major milestones on its journey to create a long-duration energy storage platform that promises to make renewable energy accessible on demand. Over the spring, it announced a customer pilot with a Midwest utility to enable its transition to a renewable electricity grid.
Another one of Engine’s other investments making progress toward carbon-free energy sources include Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) — which is a startup working to commercialize fusion energy and has received a total of over $200 million in investments to help bring its high-temperature superconducting magnets and SPARC fusion system to life. CFS recently published 7 papers in the Journal of Plasma Physics that validated its approach.
Quaise — born from research at the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center — is hoping to harness limitless supercritical geothermal energy through a unique hybrid deep-drilling technology involving gyrotron-generated electromagnetic waves. And Boston Metal utilizes technology spun out of Professor Donald Sadoway’s lab to create metals like steel without carbon dioxide emissions.
Sync Computing — a startup born out of Lincoln Laboratory — is pioneering the world’s first optimization processing unit (OPU) that could provide a solution to stubborn optimization challenges. Sync Computing co-founder Jeff Chou said that it is “algorithm in hardware form.”
MIT’s commitment to The Engine also includes support for infrastructure, access, and alignment on diversity and inclusion. And MIT continues to support the innovation ecosystem in and around Kendall Square through The Engine’s expansion project at 750 Main Street in Cambridge. When it is completed, the building will house 100 companies and 1,000 people, along with labs, office and maker space, fabrication facilities, etc. The project is expected to be done in 2022.
The Engine also established programming efforts to engage and inspire the innovation ecosystem throughout the Boston area and beyond. The firm’s annual Tough Tech Summit attracts hundreds of investors, entrepreneurs, founders, policymakers, and academics to forge a path for tough tech commercialization. Plus additional collaboration with MIT includes involvement with the STEX25 accelerator within the MIT Startup Exchange and the MIT Industrial Liaison Program (ILP).
KEY QUOTES:
“MIT was first to acknowledge that tough tech startups have largely been underfunded and underserved, and we continue to be incredibly grateful for MIT’s vision and its ongoing support of our mission to bring these innovations to the world.”
— Katie Rae, CEO and managing partner of The Engine
“We launched The Engine to help young companies focused on tough tech challenges that have the potential for enormous societal impact. Our aim was to provide them with a new model of sustained assistance and an ecosystem of talent, expertise, and support to speed their progress,” President Reif says, “so we are truly thrilled that Harvard has joined us in this mission.”
— MIT President L. Rafael Reif
“Our investment came amidst the pandemic, and in the first three months after we engaged with The Engine, we scaled from five employees to 15, from eight customers to more than 100. This rapid scaling to shift our focus from opioids to Covid-19 wouldn’t have been possible without the day-to-day operational support, deep expertise in niche areas like government, and resources The Engine gave us.”
— Newsha Ghaeli, co-founder and president of Biobot
“The Engine’s investment team made the first financial vote of confidence in our idea, and has invested in all three subsequent financings since. The Engine has also brought substantial new investors … resulting in over $100 million in capital raised to date over the past three years.”
— Form Energy cofounder, president, and COO Ted Wiley
“The Engine is unique in its understanding of the timelines, resources, and eventual payoff required to develop a hardware-based company.”
— Sync Computing co-founder Jeff Chou
