Roadrunner Welcomes Four Deep Tech Innovators to the Studio

Roadrunner Venture Studios's company creation factory is expanding. We are proud to welcome to the studio two new founders and two additional Founders-in-Residence (FIRs) who will search for and develop new deep tech ideas across their tenures. These talented leaders are building in climate tech, robotics, and advanced manufacturing.

“Deep tech is as much about people as it is scientific breakthrough. It requires founders with vision, grit, and know-how," said Adam Hammer, our CEO and Co-Founder. “Roadrunner is welcoming some of the most talented builders in the country to create the future of technology.”

The new founders will build in stealth over the course of their studio tenure, focusing on customer discovery, scientific validation, and building their businesses.

Roadrunner is now building five companies with two Founders-in-Residence searching for their next deep tech idea. The studio’s sourcing team is on the lookout for new ideas in energy, advanced manufacturing, and semiconductors for studio tenure in 2025. Entrepreneurs are encouraged to send their ideas to the team (https://web.miniextensions.com/jPzZFTBRYCXYOAcJoBLY) and/or apply to open positions on our career page (https://jobs.lever.co/roadrunner-studios).

Founders

Darren Hau | Halo Materials

Darren Hau is joining the studio to pioneer a new process to convert domestic hydrocarbon feedstocks into graphite — an essential component of lithium-ion batteries — and other advanced carbon materials for energy and national security. Lithium-ion batteries are vital for consumer and military electronics like phones, drones, electric vehicles, and grid energy storage. Massive growth in these battery-dependent industries is anticipated to drive a graphite shortfall of 777,000 tonnes per year by the 2030s. Because conventional efforts to onshore graphite production struggle to compete economically with overseas incumbents, Halo Materials is driving process innovation to dramatically reduce input energy and emissions and produce cost-competitive graphite.

Darren brings over a decade of experience designing and deploying energy technologies. Most recently, he built multiple teams responsible for charging ops, product strategy, and fleet automation at Cruise, an all-electric autonomous vehicle company. His teams consistently beat NEVI standards for charging network uptime, piloted off-grid charging solutions with various startups, worked with Stanford researchers to commercialize an electric AV dispatch model, and designed and built the first charging robot intended for wide scale deployment.

Prior to Cruise, Darren developed new Supercharger products at Tesla and deployed them globally. The modeling and simulation tools he built enabled better architectural decisions, rightsizing of electrical infrastructure, and optimization of solar and storage, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of annual savings.

He also served as an associate product manager at Schmidt Futures, where he led investments de-risking first-of-a-kind (FOAK) climate infrastructure. At the height of the COVID pandemic, he synthesized breaking research directly for Eric Schmidt, and partnered with the State of New York and various philanthropies and corporations to revitalize the state economy.

Previously, he co-founded Dragonfly Systems, a solar power electronics startup funded by the Department of Energy and acquired by SunPower. Darren is the inventor of multiple U.S. patents in power electronics and EV charging, and holds a B.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University.

Lindsey Elliott | Nexterity

Lindsey and her multi-disciplinary team at Nexterity are delivering next generation dexterity to industrial infrastructure via hands-free robotics. Starting with pipelines, Nexterity is building a hands-free robotic tool capable of bolting and unbolting pipeline flanges for a variety of industrial construction activities. With safety as the most important goal, Nexterity provides a hands-free and faster method of achieving the same bolting standards that have been in place for decades.

“I’m excited to join Roadrunner Venture Studios and to build our first product side-by-side with their outstanding product team,” Lindsey Elliott said. “Our tech increases human efficiency while ensuring laborers can perform required pipeline maintenance from a safe distance. Over the next year, our company will deploy our solution in the field and increase safety across a variety of industrial manufacturing sites. Our industries are as powerful as our people, and we are excited to enable them to do even more with Nexterity technology.”

"Nexterity is excited to partner with Roadrunner Venture Studios in its commitment to contribute to technological innovation in New Mexico. We are thrilled by the many opportunities presented by pipeline infrastructure across the state and the resources available to build with input from local talent."

Lindsey is an accomplished mechanical engineer and project management professional, who has a successful track record of delivering capital projects and industrial turnarounds within the oil & energy industry. Following graduation, Lindsey became the first TCU Engineer to work at the ExxonMobil Baton Rouge site. During her tenure, she was elected to the Women’s Interest Network leadership team for two consecutive years, and received the Fuels & Lubricants President’s Standard of Excellence Award, which highlighted her contributions within the organization.

Continuing her career, Lindsey supplemented her manufacturing skillset with AI/ML program management work for Reservoir Labs and Qualcomm, further diversifying her professional experience. Her journey showcases a commitment to excellence, leadership, versatility, and breaking barriers in traditionally male-dominated fields.

Lindsey attended Texas Christian University as a Chancellor's Scholar. She earned both a Bachelor of Science in Engineering (BS) and a Bachelor of Arts in Mathematics (BA) in 2018 and graduated as a member of the John V. Roach Honors College. Notably, she received the Religious Life Leadership Award and was the only female to graduate with Engineering Departmental Honors, representing the Class of 2018.

Founders-in-Residence

Michael Chieco

Mike Chieco has transitioned from Head of Business Development at the studio to a Founder-in-Residence focused on photonics, advanced manufacturing, and energy.

Mike is a proven operator and product leader with a track record of scaling startups and building new businesses across the United States, Europe, and Africa. Mike most recently served as the Chief Operating Officer at Zeno Moto, an emerging markets focused electric bike and charging startup.

Mike began his career at Deloitte Consulting, where he advised restaurant and retail clients on digital engagement and growth strategy Following Deloitte, Mike moved to Nairobi, Kenya where he led the launch of three international brands into the Kenyan and Tanzanian markets. Mike subsequently worked at Procter & Gamble, leading the Pantene brand and building internal, hair care focused startups, and at Meta where he drove policy and product strategy for public figures on the Facebook platform.

Mike is a dual graduate of the Yale Jackson Institute of Global Affairs and the Yale School of Management as well as Lehigh University. He is a member of the 2022 class of the Aspen Strategy Group’s Rising Leaders Program. Mike lives with his wife, Kira, and daughter, Mila.

Shawn Reese

Shawn Reese is a Founder-in-Residence at Roadrunner Venture Studios and is exploring opportunities at the intersection of robotics, manufacturing, and AI. In addition to his role at Roadrunner, Shawn is the founder and owner of Practical Bionics, which is a purpose-built shop for innovating soft bionics and advanced robotic manufacturing technology.

From 2018 to 2022, Shawn was a research scientist at Meta’s Reality Labs Research division where he worked on cutting edge human-computer interfacing technology, including virtual reality gloves and wrist based neural interfaces.

Prior to Meta, Shawn co-founded Bend Labs, which was a hardware startup focused on innovating electroactive elastomer sensors for measuring stretch, bending, and pressure in wearables, medical devices and virtual reality gloves. As CEO of Bend Labs Shawn helped raise multiple rounds of financing, drove significant revenue, led technical innovation and negotiated a licensing deal with a Fortune 100 tech company. Bend Labs was eventually acquired by Nitto Denko.

Prior to Bend Labs, Shawn was the first hire for the startup CoNextions Medical where he worked closely with an orthopedic surgeon to innovate a novel repair system for flexor tendons in the fingers. This technology has been used in hundreds of patients. As part of development, Shawn led a successful in-vivo animal study and won a Phase I SBIR grant.

Shawn received his PhD in biomedical engineering with an emphasis in computational and experimental biomechanics at the University of Utah and holds degrees in both Physics and Math/Bio at Western Washington University.