For Investors

There’s a difference between a patent and a product. Between showing something works in the lab and shipping it to customers on schedule. Many early companies are built by scientists and engineers…and it shows. They can talk for days about formulation chemistry, particle morphology, or temperature curves. It is the exciting time of “what if” we could just do this or that and would that not be so cool!

But very few have locked in on what product they’re actually building and who is going to buy it repeatedly. That gap between technical validation and commercial clarity is where many promising ventures stall.

We work with investors to evaluate if an early-stage startup has a direction, not just a discovery. That means identifying if the team understands the market they’re serving, if the spec they're hitting actually matters to a buyer, and if their internal roadmap reflects manufacturing reality or academic optimism. When we support you early, we save you the pain of learning those lessons late. Often we see there is no real appreciation for burn rate- that is 100% burn with no revenue stream yet.

Every investor has seen it: the endless test loop, the ever-shifting target product, the list of “minor” changes that delay scale-up again and again. This is the silent killer in startups. It doesn't make headlines, but it quietly burns your cash, morale, and market window. Often we must challenge if the world’s best 100 grams ever created can be scaled to a robust, repeatable, and profitable manufacturing operation.

IntoCeramics helps you break that loop. We identify when it’s time to lock the spec, pick the process, and start moving toward consistent production. We know the signs of a team stuck in scientific pursuit versus one preparing for commercial delivery. Our support during this phase can mean the difference between another tech-heavy burn and a market-ready product line.

One of the most important (and most misunderstood) questions startups face is whether to own their own manufacturing. Getting this wrong can cost years and millions of dollars. Building a plant too early, without the talent or volume to support it, leads to capital black holes. On the flip side, relying too long on a contract manufacturer who can’t meet your evolving spec or scale needs can kill quality and timelines.

We help investors model both pathways: toll production and owned production. We assess the capital required, the risk associated with each, and what the company needs to execute well. Most importantly, we look at operational maturity. If the founding team can’t yet manage throughput, quality control, and cost structure at small volumes, they’re not ready for cap-ex. That doesn’t mean the idea is wrong…it means the timing is.

In ceramics, scalability is as much about physics as it is about business. Materials behave differently in bulk. Processes that seem smooth at pilot scale can fail miserably at production volume. Things like drying rates, sintering time, or mixing homogeneity can wreak havoc on throughput and consistency.

We work with investors to answer two questions: Can this process scale? and Can this team scale it profitably? It's not enough to show the product meets spec…it has to meet spec repeatedly, under time and cost constraints that make the business model viable. We assess production constraints, supply chain readiness, and systems maturity so you can fund scale-up with confidence, not crossed fingers.

You also have to ask, does my team scale? There is a significant difference between the brilliant scientists and technology team that is very much needed for the developments compared to the operation team. You have to determine when to bring on an operations team that understands manufacturing and all the challenges to build a plant to make thousands of tons of products. There comes a point you must bench one team and bring in the other. We often see this as a major barrier to transitioning from R&D to manufacturing.