Onas Bolton

(Credit: Onas Bolton)

Name: Onas Bolton
Current Job: CEO and CTO (and Founder) of Octet Scientific, Inc.
Favorite restaurant in town? I love L’Albatros Brasserie, and each of Zach Bruell’s other restaurants I’ve been to have been fantastic also. I applaud his use of sauerkraut. If I weren’t trying to impress your audience with my sophistication, I would also mention Melt. I had the Monte Cristo there one time and promised my wife and my children any my arteries that I would never order it again. That was in 2014 and I’m still talking about it.
Favorite thing about Cleveland? Cleveland has great amenities for such an accessible city. From where I live, in about 30 minutes I can be right down town, at a major sporting event (usually), at any of several excellent museums, swimming in a Great Lake, gawking at a president’s tomb, hiking in a National Park, or eating at excellent restaurants. Also, the cost of living is great. I really feel like you have “big city” opportunities without the cost and hassle. Plus, there are a lot of very interesting things about Cleveland and its history. To illustrate this, I will highlight cool Cleveland things in my answers to follow.

Q: What is the origin story of Octet Scientific? I was working in a small research team embedded on campus at CWRU working for Atotech, a large German metals plating company. In 2016 that company was sold, and my R&D position moved to the corporate HQ in Berlin, so I decided to stay here and look for opportunities to apply my skillset toward something I cared about. On the advice of my friend and collaborator at CWRU, Prof. Rohan Akolkar, I explored what new chemistry was being developed for Zinc batteries. [Warning: Pitch-mode engaged] Zinc is a wonderful energy metal because it’s safe, cheap, plentiful, and recyclable. In fact, it’s what is in most AA, AAA, C, 9-Volt, etc. batteries, but it’s struggled to break into rechargeable battery markets because it has problems during recharging. Zinc metal doesn’t like to behave when recharged. Here I saw an opportunity because developing chemicals to tame Zinc was a natural adaptation of my prior work in electroplating. So, I started Octet and set out to develop new molecules that could help make rechargeable Zinc batteries competitors to unsafe, unsustainable lithium and toxic lead-based batteries. [Pitch-mode: disabled] We won an STTR grant from the National Science Foundation in 2018 and that began our R&D operations. With additional support from the Innovation Fund at Glide/LCCC our chemicals are currently being tested at several Zinc battery companies. Indeed, Zinc batteries are poised to take-off like the Euclid Beach Rocket Car and we’re thrilled to be a part of the green future of energy storage.

Q: You are the first person I’ve interviewed in the field of chemical engineering. For those who are reading, there is a rich history of chemical engineering in Cleveland. Can you talk about some of the ways the industry is being modernized? Developing new chemistry is challenging and often time and cost intensive. You typically need a special facility, occasionally hazardous raw materials, and significant time to iterate on your products. Two ways this is improving are through information and automation. There is more technical literature out there than ever now, and as more journals shift to open access models this info is more available to cash- strapped startups and innovation teams. Also, the Kelvin Smith Library at CWRU has walk-in community access for technical journals. I leveraged this local asset to search for ideas before deciding on our opportunity with Zinc batteries. Automation is another exciting area for chemical discovery, though it isn’t cheap. Companies are starting to offer robots that can be tasked with mixing a set number of chemicals in every possible combination to explore design space very quickly. It’s an exciting way to find something amazing without relatively quickly, much like the short hike from Viaduct Park to the beautiful Great Falls of Tinkers Creek.

Q: What are some of the ways Cleveland can do a better job of investing and revitalizing the chemical engineering industry? As I said, developing and scaling chemistry can be costly. There is much more overhead required than there is for the software startups that typify much of today’s entrepreneurship landscape. Nevertheless, there is substantial opportunity to innovate and improve exiting chemical solutions with very valuable and achievable new products. In some cases, a better technology may just be an atom-or-two away. I’m also convinced that there are many unseen opportunities for new chemicals both existing and undiscovered. It would be great to see Cleveland leverage its current chemical prowess and history to become a more welcoming landing spot for hard-tech chemical startups. Though these ventures are admittedly harder to fit, it could be a big opportunity for the region. Delaware is doing something like this with a big assist from DuPont. They host an excellent Chemical Ventures Conference each year and have a chemistry-centric incubator with fume hoods, house nitrogen, various expensive testing equipment, and other things that chemists need. It attracts chemical startups from all over the east coast, and I could imagine a Midwestern version of this in Cleveland. Also, while their numbers are growing, finding Angel Investors that understand the needs and timelines of chemistry startups can be challenging. If you’re looking for an awe-inspiring Angel, it’s much easier to find the Haserot Angel.

Q: Your company just received another grant. Can you discuss the process you went through and the details of the grant? We’ve received two STTR/SBIR grants from the National Science Foundation. These are excellent, though very competitive, sources of non-dilutive funding that are offered from fifteen different federal agencies. Each brings $100 – 250 K to the small business, which many opportunities for follow-on funding later. For each of them the real trick is to find your customer before you write the grant proposal and, if possible, have them on-board before also though support letters attached to your proposal. The Ohio Aerospace Institute has resources to help with becoming familiar with the SBIR program, and there are many others. Before beginning the whole grant process though I also recommend the I-Corps program, like the one that U. Akron holds. They really help you understand how to make your science customer-centric and follow the clues to your best-fit market, much like Elliot Ness followed clues to try unsuccessfully to identify the Cleveland Torso Murderer.

Q: In addition to being an entrepreneur, you have a family. How are you all adjusting to the pandemic? It’s been hard. Our kids are young and shoehorning their constant care and stimulation into our work schedules is difficult. My wife and I are religiously hard workers and we hate to feel like we are not putting maximum effort into both our work and our kids. That’s tough when you’ve got to be an unskilled teachers’ assistant for half the day. Despite this, we consider ourselves lucky to be able to do it while both still working with minimal financial disruptions. I can’t really complain when I know that there are families that are having to make hard decisions about childcare, work, and money. I really hope that this experience will change some attitudes in our country about what parts of our society need better support. After all, families are the foundation of America, just like salt is the foundation of Cleveland. That one was a stretch.