Launched by MIT, The Engine bridges the gap between discovery and commercialization by empowering disruptive technologies with the long-term capital, knowledge, network connections, and the specialized equipment and labs they need to thrive.

Tough Tech companies have historically been underserved and underfunded, leaving many breakthrough inventions stuck inside the lab. This is why they focus exclusively on founders pioneering technology with the genuine ability to transform the planet.

Everything they do is in the service of their founders and their work.

The Engine was MIT’s response to a challenge MIT leaders had heard from many brilliant faculty members and alumni entrepreneurs: that finding the sustained support to develop complex Tough Tech ideas was nearly impossible. MIT President L. Rafael Reif articulated the problem in May 2015 in an op-ed in the Washington Post. While the current US innovation system is highly optimized to support the success of digital technologies that can typically reach market success in three to five years, it is “simply not structured to support complex, slower-growing concepts that could end up being hugely significant — the kind that might lead to disruptive solutions to existential challenges in sustainable energy, water and food security, and health.”