How an engineering startup got off the ground in the Ohio State entrepreneurial ecosystem

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“It typically takes three things to build a successful startup: a promising technology, funding and talent,” said Cheryl Turnbull, senior director for the Keenan Center for Entrepreneurship. “We are here to bring these elements together to help take promising technologies developed at The Ohio State University into the marketplace where they can impact lives.”

One Ohio State startup, Applied Impulse, Inc., began with discoveries made through Glenn Daehn’s research at Ohio State, where he is the Mars G. Fontana Professor of Metallurgical Engineering in the College of Engineering and leads the Impulse Manufacturing Lab.

Glenn Daehn in lab
Daehn (right) and Vivek with prototype

The company is based on Daehn’s development of impulse manufacturing technology, for which there are many novel applications in industry. The first commercial focus is to join dissimilar materials with high strength joints that do not degrade the parent materials. Traditional welding of two materials – such as aluminum and steel – won’t work because of weak compounds formed in traditional fusion welding. Joints using rivets, screws or adhesives tend to fail over time due to corrosion and fatigue.

“Our journey in Impulse Manufacturing spans back about 30 years,” recalled Daehn. “Through that time, we have become one of the world’s leading groups in this area."

Impact welding is a solid-state joining technique that welds together two different materials by, simply put, launching materials at high speed into one another by either vaporizing conductors, electromagnetic induction or laser-driven impulse. This process creates a bond that is stronger than the base materials and traditional fusion joining methods. The value proposition for industry results from enabling dissimilar materials to be joined to reduce weight, lower manufacturing cost, improve performance for products to be smaller, lighter and less expensive. 

Anupam Vivek, a former student of Daehn and now a full-time researcher in the lab, has also contributed significantly to this portfolio of technologies over his career and is a partner in the new company.

“Many technologies discovered in a university lab setting are early stage and need additional resources before they are ready for the marketplace,” said Turnbull. “When a technology is identified to be an attractive startup, we work to connect researchers to the right funding opportunities to further the concepts.”

Daehn and Vivek’s impulse manufacturing technologies benefitted from several funding mechanisms available through Ohio State and other sources.

In 2015, Daehn received an Accelerator Award, which is funded by the university and the Ohio Third Frontier Technology Validation and Start-Up Fund. The program aims to fill the funding gap between basic academic research support and the investment of seed-stage capital and put more cutting-edge Ohio State innovations in the marketplace.

“The Accelerator Awards supports inventors whose technologies have startup potential, allowing them to validate and de-risk under the guidance of industry expertise,” explained Turnbull. Of the 60 projects funded through the program since 2015, 18 have become the basis for a startup company. “Glenn and Anupam were able to use the funding to demonstrate the technology was able to create stronger welds without using rivets, helping make the technology more attractive for commercialization.”

Throughout the course of their research and commercialization, the company has utilized state and federal funding as well, including grants from I-Corps@Ohio, the SBIR/STTR program and the National Science Foundation.

Resources and corporate partnerships are also vital in bringing a startup to life. The university has a number of centers and institutes that are available to speed the commercialization of university inventions. Ohio State’s Center for Design and Manufacturing Excellence (CDME) has been a hub to build equipment and bring partners like Honda and Coldwater Machine together in a common environment.

The final piece of the puzzle for this startup is bringing in additional talent to further position the company for potential success.

David Stroud, who has more than 30 years of experience in research and development and commercialization of technologies, came to learn about the technologies through his long career and connections in the area. He’s worked extensively with several leaders at Ohio State, Edison Welding Institute and Battelle. In conversations with them, he became interested in Daehn’s work.

“These technologies had been matured and developed to the point where I couldn’t turn a blind eye to them,” said Stroud. “I’m excited to see where we can take them.” Stroud leads commercialization strategy as vice president of business development at Applied Impulse, sharing leadership duties with Daehn and Vivek. Stroud sees many applications for the technology’s use in the manufacturing of vehicles, medical devices, aerospace, industrial and consumer products.  

“David has been instrumental in negotiating contracts and helping to establish the company,” said Daehn. “We now have more than $500,000 in committed or executed contracts with at least a half dozen companies in the auto, aerospace and basic R&D sectors.” Applied Impulse has also established its own R&D and low-volume manufacturing center at Rev1 Ventures

The combination of the idea, funding and talent – and a few other resources along the way – is all leading to what looks to be a bright future. “We are growing fast,” added Daehn. “This positive outlook requires all hands on deck.”

by Ohio State's Corporate Engagement Office

Category: Research