About

Pioneering Deep Tech Institute

A nonprofit that helps inventors keep what they build.

Turn scientifically valid deep-tech ideas into launchable companies. PDTI gives founders the resources, shared equipment, and execution support that bridge basic science to useful invention for public benefit.

Hardware and instrumentation on a working bench, mid-build.

A Utah 501(c)(3) since February 2022. Three directors, a multi-domain engineering team, and one company already shipped.

About

What PDTI does.

Deep tech is convergence. Multiple disciplines forced into one product. No single discipline alone can ship it. PDTI exists to make convergence happen on purpose.

We operate across seven capability clusters. Each PDTI program spans the clusters it needs. Founder-aligned. Zero equity, no IP capture, and a modest product-linked royalty that recycles into the next builder.

We build hard things. Real things. Things that employ people and build into the American dream. The Credo is the longer answer: the mentor whose company was hollowed out, the extraction cycle we named, and the bargain we will not offer.

Compute & Data Robotics & Mechatronics Materials & Fabrication Bio & Microfluidics Sensing & Signal Power & Propulsion Space & Aerospace

Each program assembles a discipline-mix that produces a product no single discipline alone could ship. EmberGraph Intel is the first company built through Zero to MVP. See the seven clusters in detail below, or apply if you build.

Our mission

Mission

We're a nonprofit that helps inventors turn a working prototype into a company they still own. We give them the space, the capital, and the manufacturing help to get across the last mile, and we keep no IP.

Our full mission was adopted by Board Resolution Exhibit C and signed 2025-12-28. It governs our filings and grant materials.

Capability

The seven clusters in detail.

PDTI's operational substrate organizes into seven capability clusters. Each cluster spans owned core, partner-network access, and external contract relationships. Programs traverse the clusters they need.

Compute & Data

Active

Signal processing
Data infrastructure
Verification & provenance

High-performance compute, graph intelligence, and signal processing in service of evidence and decisions. EmberGraph Intel, the first company built through Zero to MVP, sits here.

Robotics & Mechatronics

Active

Robotic systems
Sensors & actuators
Embedded control

Industrial robotic systems, computer vision for manufacturing, peripheral nerve interfaces, embedded control. Where physical work meets real-time decision.

Materials & Fabrication

Phase 2

Advanced materials
Process & fabrication
Characterization

The substrate under everything physical PDTI builds. Composites, biomaterials, semiconductor materials, casting polymers, characterization labs. Cross-cuts mining, water, and manufacturing access.

Bio & Microfluidics

Active

Bench chemistry
Diagnostic platforms
Synthetic chemistry

Point-of-care diagnostics, biosensors, microfluidic continuous-test platforms, drug delivery, synthetic chemistry. Real medicine for real people.

Sensing & Signal

Active

Optical & RF
Environmental sensing
Signal extraction

Analytical instrumentation across optical, RF, acoustic, and environmental modalities. Capture what's there. Turn it into something you can act on.

Power & Propulsion

Phase 2

Generation
Storage
Nuclear

Power systems engineering. Nuclear-led generation, electrochemistry and battery work, grid hardware, advanced propulsion. The power American industry needs to win this decade.

Space & Aerospace

Phase 3

Flight hardware
Mission instruments
Life support

Flight hardware, mission instrumentation, space-medicine diagnostics. The hardest engineering on the hardest schedule. Standup in 2027-2028 via existing alumni network.

How people work with us

Four relationships, and what each one actually involves.

Someone makes it. Someone pays for it. Someone supplies it. Someone tells people it exists. Each brings something specific and each gets something specific. We tell you fast if the fit is wrong, and we point you somewhere better when it is.

Builder

Bring the prototype. Keep the company.

You bring: A deep-tech idea past the napkin stage, with a clear community-benefit multiplier. Working prototypes move fastest.
You get: Shared facilities, targeted capital, manufacturing help, and experienced legal and regulatory support. Zero equity taken, no IP capture, and a modest product-linked royalty that recycles into the next builder.

Apply

Funder

Bring capital. Switch on capacity every builder after reuses.

You bring: Philanthropic capital. Individual donors, institutional foundations, and program-aligned funders. Utah 501(c)(3) since February 2022.
You get: Leverage, not ownership. Every dollar is built to unlock a multiple of downstream private capital, plus Utah jobs and community benefit. Equipment funded once gets used by every project after it.

Support PDTI

Supplier

Bring capability. Get mission-aligned pipeline.

You bring: Labs, manufacturing nodes, specialty fabrication, regulatory counsel, compute, clinical sites, or educational capacity.
You get: Fit-based introductions to the founders we back, and work that arrives already scoped. Clear guardrails: no IP capture, community-benefit anchored.

Partner

Amplifier

Bring audience. Get work that survives scrutiny.

You bring: Readers, listeners, or a newsroom. Journalists and analysts working on a story about deep tech, manufacturing capacity, or coverage pathways.
You get: A press kit, boilerplate, sourced bios, and people who will show you the method rather than a talking point. We correct our own record in public when we get something wrong.

Press and media

You may be more than one of these, and most of our best relationships are: a supplier who also advises, a funder who also opens a door. Not sure where to start? Start with the builder form and say so. Mismatched fit goes to a better home elsewhere, and we tell you fast.

Output, not plans

What we have shipped

Companies are not the only thing that leaves this institute.

The PDTI Journal is live and publishing. The Credo, long-form explainers, and an expert-interview series, all written to make deep-tech development, regulatory pathways, and emerging-technology governance legible to people who do not build for a living.

On the research side, our urinary collagen IV and eGFR correlation methodology for early chronic kidney disease detection is written up and under peer review.

The structural differentiator

What founder-aligned actually means

Every conventional accelerator captures equity and often IP at terms that benefit the accelerator over the founder. PDTI is built the other way.

Conventional accelerator

Captures equity, typically 7 to 15 percent
Often captures or licenses IP rights
Generalist; low selectivity gate
Operating costs externalized to the founder

PDTI founder-aligned

No IP capture. Founders keep ownership
Zero equity taken
Modest 3% product-linked royalty, capped at 2x our cost, with a five-year sunset
Selectivity gate: clear community-benefit multiplier
Operating layer provided: facilities, capital, legal/regulatory

Stated as one sentence, the way we say it everywhere: zero equity, no IP capture, and a modest 3% product-linked royalty that recycles into the next builder, capped at 2x our cost, with a five-year sunset.

The operating consequence: a deep-tech founder with a working prototype and the right community-benefit profile can graduate through PDTI to a working MVP without forfeiting ownership of what they built.

2022 → today

Our story

Pioneering Deep Tech Institute was founded as Utah Research Institute (URI) in February 2022. URI received its 501(c)(3) determination from the IRS on 2022-02-25.

From 2023 through 2025, URI conducted research, developed methodology, and built the team and capability that underwrite the incubator model. In December 2025 the Board adopted the current mission, organizational structure, and public name. The state-level name change took effect at the same time. Under the original EIN, all records remain continuous.

EmberGraph Intel, the first company built through Zero to MVP, shipped in April 2026 as the operating proof. PDTI's operational substrate organizes into seven capability clusters. Each program spans the clusters it needs.

Feb 2022

URI founded; 501(c)(3) IRS effective

2023 to 2025

Research & methodology

Dec 2025

Renamed PDTI; mission adopted

Apr 2026

First company shipped: EmberGraph Intel

May 2026

Seven-cluster taxonomy locked

2026+

Additional companies in development

First company build · EmberGraph Intel · 6 weeks · March to April 2026

6

Weeks build

$200

of compute

2,100+

Tests passing

8

Team, unpaid

Shipped on the PDTI operating model. Proof the model is repeatable, founder-aligned, no IP capture.

Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit

Governance & leadership

PDTI is governed by a Board of Directors with active oversight of mission alignment, financial stewardship, and program-level decisions.

Andrew Piskadlo

CEO & President · Managing Director, EmberGraph Intel

Nick Witham, PhD

Chief Technology Officer & Vice President · Co-founder

Michael Greenwald

Secretary · Co-founder

501(c)(3) since February 2022

EIN available on request

Form 990 available on request

Pioneering Deep Tech Institute is a Utah 501(c)(3) nonprofit organized for charitable, scientific, and educational purposes. PDTI was founded as Utah Research Institute (URI) in February 2022, with 501(c)(3) status effective 2022-02-25 per IRS determination. The state-level name change to Pioneering Deep Tech Institute was effective December 2025. Under the original EIN, all records remain continuous and in good standing.

Direct inquiries to info@PioneeringDeep.Tech.

Where to next

Pick a path

Routes by intent. Whether you're building, partnering, governing, or reading.

Apply as a builder Meet the team Support PDTI Read the Journal