
Ignite Startups: Building Category-Defining Platforms for Innovation with Rupak Doshi | Ep193
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About this listen
Rupak Doshi is a scientist-turned-entrepreneur and the co-founder & CEO of OmniSync, creators of the flagship platform TurboInnovate. With a background spanning research at Cambridge, Scripps Research, and UCSD, as well as industry experience in biotech drug development, Rupak has spent the last decade helping deep tech ideas move from lab benches to global markets. Through OmniSync, he has helped unlock more than $4 billion in federal innovation capital for startups and built tools that streamline commercialization pathways using AI.
In this episode, Rupak shares how his journey from academia to entrepreneurship shaped his vision for democratizing innovation. He discusses the challenges of bridging science with business, his unconventional approach to hiring, and why OmniSync is creating a category-defining platform to accelerate deep tech commercialization.
In Today’s Episode We Discuss:
00:01 – Introduction to Rupak and OmniSync’s mission
00:52 – Growing up in India, early love for biology, and pivot to biotech
02:00 – Research journey: UK master’s and PhD at Cambridge, postdoc in San Diego
03:07 – Moving into biotech industry and the importance of partnerships
04:30 – Founding OmniSync and the aha moment that shaped their mission
06:19 – Building company culture: hiring for drive, not resumes
08:01 – Signals of hustle and how OmniSync identifies talent
12:51 – Biggest lessons transitioning from academia to entrepreneurship
16:16 – The origin and evolution of TurboInnovate
20:28 – End-to-end user journey for startups on the platform
22:26 – Customers: universities, startups, Fortune 1000, and government
24:09 – Defining a new category of innovation intelligence
25:10 – Personal story: tattoo, family, and passions outside of work
26:24 – Competing in a crowded “AI for research” market
29:27 – OmniSync’s diverse cap table: blending venture, government, and academia
31:21 – Go-to-market: why conferences are OmniSync’s highest-ROI strategy
34:01 – A hard pivot: moving from human experts to fully automated AI workflows
37:04 – What’s next: building autonomous commercialization feedback loops
42:01 – Looking ahead with AI
44:52 – Transition to rapid fire
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