Silhouetted people in a dark room look up at a glowing, multi-colored neon ladder, with holographic screens on either side displaying data over a city skyline.

A TRL ladder that fits with this text: Some of the most promising deep tech breakthroughs never make it past the research paper stage. Not because they don’t work—but because there’s no infrastructure, team, or capital to carry them across the messy middle. The gap between a lab prototype and a commercial product is wide, and most founders are left to figure it out alone. If we want more science-backed startups to thrive, we need to start funding and building the in-between. I’d love to hear from others navigating this space—what have you seen work when bridging the research-to-market gap? See more