Hi — I’m Krish Bhuva, Co-Founder at Elyton. Thanks for joining us on this journey.
Wins
Fundraising: Signed with AlienTT consultants to pursue NSF SBIR Phase 1 funding, asking for $305,000 on a no-win, no-fee contract. They have a 35% success rate compared to a 10% industry average.
FreeFORM Technologies: Advancing a potential ~$30k/month production pilot opportunity to finish up to 1,000 metal-AM gun muzzles per month.
Y Combinator: Received an interview on our first application, with nearly 40k applications per batch and a roughly 4% interview rate.
Engineering: Large strides in power electronics, chemistry, and gantry designs. Pictures below :)
Asks
Introductions to owners or operators of machine shops and manufacturing businesses.
Connections within aerospace and defense manufacturing, especially people familiar with metal additive manufacturing.
Guidance on regulatory and quality requirements, particularly NADCAP and AS9100.
Support, advice, and investor introductions as we raise a $500,000 pre-seed round.
Outgoing
Non-dilutive funding through VentureWell Propel and CT Westport Startup Competition.
Losses
Y Combinator: Ultimately rejected; the interview went as well as it could have, but they want to see us full-time with a signed contract before investment. We were strongly encouraged to reapply; most startups get in on their 3rd or 4th application. You can find the rejection feedback here.
Wolff New Venture: Elyton was not among the 5 UConn startups invited to pitch at Wolff New Venture. We will still be at the event tabling and should have some cool demos!
TIP Lab: Our 6-month lease with UConn’s technology incubation program ends in October, and they want 3% equity in Elyton for renewal.
This was a hard month for the Elyton team; numerous rejections and obstacles presented themselves. The goal has not changed, only the path.
It’s abundantly clear that there is massive commercial opportunity here, and the market timing is near perfect. We’re also unusually technically equipped and positioned to commercialize our solution.
Unfortunately, we're not 4 MIT PhDs with 3 successful exits behind us, so investors are (understandably) unwilling to throw money at us, just yet. All of this to say, we’re still here; we’re still grinding, and we’re going to the moon!
Please feel free to reach out: [email protected]
Elyton’s proprietary “Super Power Stage” is designed to pulse 500 amps.
Elyton’s proprietary “Super Sense V0” is designed to sense current and interface with mesa boards to execute feedback loops.
Proprietary “Elyton Mini Machine,” our base platform for a cheap, repeatable RPECM production line. The first one is being machined and should be working by the next newsletter.