Tech Outlook with Doug Campbell

What can make or break a start up? What do venture capitalists consider before making an investment? How does New Mexico’s startup ecosystem compare to other cities?

Our guest on this week’s edition of Tech Outlook is Doug Campbell.

Campbell is an Albuquerque native who studied civil engineering and aerospace at the University of New Mexico, earning bachelor’s and master’s degrees while competing in a professional mountain biking circuit.

He then moved to the Denver Front Range area, working for tech companies and ultimately starting two companies that he exited after they went public.

A member of the UNM Foundation, Campbell moved back to Albuquerque in the last year to mentor or invest in startups to improve the local economy.

Here’s a sample of our conversation, which has been edited for clarity.

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Can you tell us about your startups?

“The first was called Roccor, that is still based in Longmont, Colorado, and that was a component supplier in the low Earth orbit industry.

Myself and my co-founder established that in 2011. It was established primarily because we saw there was a big change happening in the space, satellite industry. Historically, old space was these large, billion-dollar satellites operating in geostationary orbit. What we saw was that this low Earth orbit — so think Starlink — this low Earth orbit market was going to really boom.

I called ourselves the picks and shovels of the low Earth orbit satellite industry, meaning we didn’t make the payloads, we didn’t make the bus structures, we made all the components that bolted onto the payload and bus structure.

We sold that to a private equity company called Redwire. They’re continuing to grow quite rapidly and are traded on the New York Stock Exchange.

In parallel, I founded a company (Solid Power) based on some research at the University of Colorado Boulder — think next-generation batteries for electric vehicles — ran that for a little over a decade and ultimately took that public on NASDAQ in 2021 and stepped down as CEO in 2022. Shortly thereafter, I boomeranged back to Albuqurque.”

What were the keys to your companies’ success?

“It’s kind of pulling out our quote-unquote crystal ball and making some bets on what we think prospective industries are going to pivot toward. So in space, we were accurate in predicting that low Earth orbit satellites marked an opportunity that was going to happen. And in the case of Solid Power, it was just the advent of the electric vehicle market. Back in 2011, 2012, when we founded it, EVs were still sort of a concept. By the time we took the company public, the EV market was really booming in a big way.”

Why did you boomerang back to Albuquerque?

“This is my hometown. I love New Mexico. That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy my time on the Front Range, but that’s not my home. And I’m not going to lie, it also got really crowded, especially in COVID. I found myself in an interesting position where I didn’t necessarily need to continue to work. I stepped down from my last position. I was ready to come back and I was ready to give back to this community and see what I can do, not only in the startup world, but I’m heavily involved with the University of New Mexico. I just want to try to help the community in areas where I actually bring something to the table.”

Can you tell us about the tech startup world here in Albuquerque?

“I’ve concluded that what is special about this place is there’s no shortage of research and development. So there’s no shortage of great ideas. There’s no shortage of great tech between the likes of Sandia (National Laboratories), (Los Alamos National Laboratory), University of New Mexico, Air Force Research Lab, New Mexico Tech. But the challenge is that there is not a large ecosystem of seasoned entrepreneurs with a catcher’s mitt on waiting to catch that R&D and turn it into commercially viable products and rapid high-growth businesses. And that’s what I’ve zeroed in on here. How do we fix that?”

What does an entrepreneur need?

“Access to capital from angel investors, (venture capital firms), access to mentors, people like me who have actually been there and done that, who have experienced the challenges and fundraising challenges, have experience running companies and the challenges of dealing with personnel and so forth. And you need good examples around you. That’s what an ecosystem is — ‘Look at what this company did, I want to do the same thing.’ That’s where I think we’re still subcritical here in New Mexico.”

How would you assess the venture capital and startup ecosystem here in New Mexico?

“The challenge that a lot of companies in New Mexico face is that they can raise a few million dollars early on. And then once they go toward the big bucks, your series As, your series Bs, they have a tendency to be drug out of state. Investors want to be in more burgeoning areas. The companies end up having to recruit out of state for CEOs. And guess what? If they don’t end up moving to New Mexico guess what’s going to happen? That company is generally going to move to where they are. And that’s the problem that I’m kind of focused on right now. How do we fix that?”