ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES | NOVEMBER 2026 46 SENSING AND INSTRUMENTATION LASER THERMAL • Year Founded: 2020 • Location: Charlottesville, Va. • Founders: Dr. John Gaskins and Dr. Patrick Hopkins Laser Thermal builds precision instruments that measure how heat moves through materials, from nanometer-thick films to bulk components and coatings. Grain structure, defects, porosity, multilayer stacks, processing, temperature cycling, and interfaces all change thermal behavior, and conventional bulk methods cannot resolve them. Laser Thermal’s FASTR and TOPS platforms can, and the company also runs a contract measurement service for teams that need data without buying an instrument. Customers include many Fortune 500 companies across semiconductors, power electronics, aerospace, defense, and government labs. The company holds more than ten patents and spun out of the University of Virginia. Wish list: Materials and process engineers who need thermal property data. Introductions to technical leads at primes and DoD labs working on hypersonics, thermal protection, and power electronics. Contact: Francois Martin, francois.martin@laserthermal.com Website: laserthermal.com SENSE MANUFACTURING INC. • Year Founded: 2025 • Location: Sterling, Va. and Cleveland • Founders: Carson Morell, Farbod Moghaddam, Jeremy Francese, and Daniel Scott Mitchell Sense Manufacturing helps small and midsize manufacturers get more output from the machines they already own. Noninvasive current and vibration sensors monitor each machine from the outside. Nothing connects to the controller, and no proprietary data is touched, so it works on COMMONALITIES AND INSIGHTS A pattern appears to connect these companies. What’s enabling this wave of startups isn’t one breakthrough but a convergence: the adoption of AI layered on top of non-dilutive federal funding, and the university spinout pipelines that still do the heavy lifting of early science. The cost and time to start a serious materials-based company have dropped—and founders are moving. What they struggle with is rarely the science. Nearly every founder is hunting for commercialization leadership—someone who can carry a deep-tech material to real customers—a need most acute for the university spinouts. Close behind: landing first customers and surviving long qualification and RFP cycles; raising capital on the right terms; and converting government momentum into durable industry partnerships. Talent comes up often, and the scarce hire has both commercial and technical experience. That is precisely where the ASM community comes in. An AM&P reader who has spent a career in materials— qualifying alloys, running a plant, specifying components, sitting across the table from primes—is exactly the advisor, first customer, supplier, or mentor these founders are looking for. Feel free to reach out to any of these startups if you saw your own work in any of the needs above or if you can connect them with appropriate resources in your network. ~AM&P any make, model, or age of machine. Shops see utilization, learn why machines go down, and get early warnings before a system fails. Mega-manufacturers have had this kind of monitoring for years. Sense brings it to everyone else in a fast, affordable manner. The system runs in more than 50 factories today, and customers typically find more than 10% extra capacity without adding more equipment or labor. Wish list: Introductions to factory leaders who run machines (of any make, model, or vintage) where more uptime would make a real difference to the business. We also seek connections and collaborators in defense, medical devices, and food and beverage as we expand into new industries. Contact: Daniel Scott Mitchell, daniel@sensemfg.com Website: sensemfg.com Gaskins Hopkins For more information: Dr. Lun Chan, principal materials engineer, X-Energy Inc., Arlington, VA, holunchan98@ gmail.com.
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