Today we’d like to introduce you to Benjamin Hernandez.
So, before we jump into specific questions about the business, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
During graduate school to get my JD-MBA, I met two unique individuals who would ultimately become co-founders and dear friends. One was a Ph.D. student in chemical engineering and the other a young faculty member in the department of chemistry. Their research focused on the application of high-performance computing to design cutting-edge nanomaterials that could solve complex societal challenges such as carbon capture or hydrogen storage. What united us was a shared vision of what the future might be if we could successfully commercialize this technology. NuMat Technologies was born out of that vision. It’s founding was a deeply human endeavor, a mix of having the right people in place at the right time.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
The myth of the entrepreneur is one of a superhuman being born with some visionary insight, prowess, and power capable of disrupting industries and changing the world. While there are individuals who do just that, the superhuman narrative is often one built after the fact. The truth is less sexy: founding an IP-intensive technology organization that works on the problems that matter is extremely challenging, fraught with make-or-break moments as well as “death by a thousand cuts.” Early on, our main struggle, similar to many science-based start-ups, was that we had insufficient capitalization to truly go full steam ahead. This forced us to be incredibly scrappy as we became laser-focused on systematically reducing risk with the least amount of capital possible. We literally were making nanomaterials in pickle jars, and my desk for the first three years was a door turned on its side. Never having what we needed was a constant struggle but it also built a culture of extreme resourcefulness, which is now part of our ethos.
NuMat Technologies – what should we know? What do you guys do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Molecules are nature’s building blocks. Every living thing on this planet is composed of them. Many of the world’s biggest challenges – pollution, resource scarcity, climate change – happen at the smallest possible levels. Today, we either have too many “bad” molecules that impact the environment (think CO2), or too few “good” molecules (think clean water or precious minerals, metals, etc.), which impact the human condition and often lead to conflict. With population growth, these issues will become more acute and unsustainable. NuMat seeks solutions through the use of a new class of nanomaterials called metal-organic frameworks or “MOFs.” Think of MOFs as super Brita filters, except that we can program them to uniquely harvest life-sustaining resources, or to capture and destroy life-threatening ones. We are the first company to commercialize MOFs, and our first application is offering solutions for safer storage of toxic gases needed to make computer chips and other electronics.
What makes NuMat unique is our pioneering use of high-performance computing to tailor design MOFs for targeted applications, predicting performance before we ever make them in a lab. We then scale these materials and assemble them into engineered products that precisely harvest resources at the atomic level. This is the future of precision engineering, we’re excited to be leading from the front as a manufacturer in the Midwest.
What has been the proudest moment of your career so far?
Three things:
(1) NuMat being the first company in the world to build engineered products enabled by MOFs – a key advancement in the field.
(2) Applying my passion for building a company that just might truly matter – solving the problems that the world needs solving.
(3) Assembling an amazing team of people who share this passion and who challenge me every day to become a better individual worthy of leading.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.numat-tech.com
- Email: info@numat-tech.com
Image Credit:
NuMat Technologies
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