Hatch works with researchers, founders, SMEs and university teams across the UK and US to turn deep tech into commercially viable businesses. Not as consultants who deliver a report and disappear. As an embedded partner that brings engineering and commercialisation strategy into the same room from the first conversation, because in deep tech those decisions are never separate problems.
The hardest part of building a deep tech venture is not the science. It is knowing which decisions to make, when to make them, and having the evidence to support them. Most people giving that advice have never built a company themselves. Lesley and Chris have. From founding and exiting a transatlantic deep tech company in two years to running live engineering programmes for researchers, founders, SMEs and university teams across the UK and US. Hatch exists because great technology deserves people in the room who have actually done it, not just advised on it.
MESSAGE FROM FOUNDERS
Lesley Blaine & Chris Gregory
The UK has the lowest robot density in the G7. This year the government funds Robotics Adoption Hubs and a Central Convening Body to fix that. The catch: it only works if we build it as air traffic control, not a help desk. Here is how, and where Hatch fits in.
Innovate UK has changed direction. A strong technical story is no longer enough on its own. The new strategy aims to build high-potential UK businesses, not fund isolated projects. Assessors calibrate applications against a portfolio-level view of what Innovate UK wants the UK economy to look like. The commercial case is no longer supporting evidence. It is the case for funding. A defined beachhead market, sized credibly. A named first buyer and a reason they buy. A clear line from the grant-funded phase to the work that follows. The founders who win start this work long before the form opens.
A TRL 7 demonstration is not an investment thesis. Neither is a patent filing, a peer-reviewed paper, or a proof of concept. These are necessary conditions. They are not sufficient ones. Sophisticated deep tech investors evaluate four things in parallel with the technology: market validation, beachhead clarity, IP coherence, and team completeness. The weakest of the four sets the valuation. Most deep tech ventures leave the commercial questions until the technology is ready. That sequencing is the standard failure pattern. The most expensive version of it is discovered at the investor meeting.
If you are not sure where to start that is exactly what the first conversation is for. No pitch, no pressure just a conversation.