Colin Fowler and guest host, Ben Brokesh, visit TechCrunch Disrupt 2025. Listen in as they meet with some of the foremost startup entrepreneurs.

Timestamps:

3:24 – HyWatts (Sam Ruben, CBDO and Co-Founder): Delivers clean, modular energy systems that turn renewable power into reliable electricity.

14:23 – Tesollo (Youngjin Kim, President and CEO; Wooseok Ryu, CTO): Solves complex problems and creates new value for their customers through advanced robotic automation solutions utilizing robotic grippers.

19:46 – Carbon Native Solutions (Keith Crossland, CEO): Invented a new class of multi-objective AI that transforms local industrial waste and minerals into high-performance, carbon-negative cement materials using standard equipment.

29:23 – Steg.AI (Eric Wengrowski, CEO): Trains in-house deep learning models for watermarking and poisoning for use through APIs, web applications, and third-party integrations.

41:27 – Ascender Systems (Jorge Muniz, Co-Founder and CEO): Patented a climbing robot that can scale utility/light/flag poles, pipes, and columns of varying shapes from 3 inches to 22 inches.

49:49 – Ponderosa.ai (Scott Benson, Founding Software Engineer): Develops cost-effective AI-enabled fire suppression drone swarms that can be broadly distributed and prepositioned in areas of high risk.

Michael Glenn and guest host, Bryce Freund, visit the 2025 Austin Tech Week. Listen as they meet and mingle with some of Austin’s startup entrepreneurs.

Timestamps:

01:51 - Orbit Fab (Daniel Faber, Founding CEO): Founded in 2018 to eliminate the single-use spacecraft paradigm with in-space refueling.

10:50 – Davy Photonics (Paul Golata): Supports the technological needs of our customers by developing industry-leading light sources and custom photonic solutions.

16:33 – spogan.ai (Joonas Koivuniemi, Co-Founder & CEO): Turns complex data into clear, real-time guidance with voice and visuals.

22:56 – Well Water Finders (Andrew Vandekop): Helps decision makers in real estate, agriculture, county supply, and private land ownership determine not only where groundwater is located, but whether there is enough of it to meet their needs.

30:07 – Alt-Bionics (Jackson Heinz, Co-Founder and CTO): Striving to transform the fields of prosthetics and humanoid robotics with cutting-edge, yet affordable bionic hands.

In this episode, Michael and Colin enter the world of indigenous high fashion with Amber Dawn Bear Robe, curator of Native Fashion Week – Santa Fe.

Michael and Colin speak with the CTO of General Galactic, Luke Neise, about employing a water-based propulsion system in spacecraft to achieve high thrust for rapid maneuver and high efficiency for sustained operations in space.

Michael and Colin discuss fire pits, problem solving as a key feature of inventing, and perseverance with solo entrepren-eer, John Chadwell.

• 2:02 - GreenLIB: One-step pre-treatment process that extracts and refines critical battery elements
• 4:25 - Rora: Committed to bettering women’s health at every life stage by creating innovative products for menopause symptom management
• 8:10 - Safe Marine Transfer: Focused on safe subsea chemical injection to economically extend deepwater subsea tiebacks
• 13:01 - Xatoms: using AI and Quantum-Chemistry to discover new materials to clean polluted water
• 16:57 - Pinwheel: Designed for kids and managed by parents, this cool looking, modern phone helps kids grow into independent adults who use technology well
• 23:20 - Watermarked.ai: Disrupts AI model training with undetectable audio watermarks and detects AI-generated deepfakes
• 25:46 - Mito Robotics: AI-powered robotic system designed to automate research-scale cell culture