Glenn Bindley on Scaling Hard Tech Innovations

Glenn Bindley, President & CEO of Redlen Technologies.

For more than two decades, Glenn Bindley has guided Redlen Technologies through the uncharted terrain of scaling hard tech innovation, turning ambitious scientific ideas into manufacturing reality and commercial success. Since Pangaea Ventures first invested in Redlen in 2014, we have witnessed Glenn’s exceptional leadership as he navigated the company from visionary startup to world-class innovator, culminating in Redlen’s acquisition by Canon in 2021. Glenn’s journey embodies the challenges and triumphs unique to hard tech: relentless experimentation, risk-taking in uncertain technical domains, and the value of building a team and investor base that stands strong through both breakthroughs and near-death setbacks.

In the conversation that follows, Glenn shares deeply candid reflections on the hurdles faced when scaling high-impact technology, from proving the existence of a single novel device, to manufacturing repeatably under intense pressure, and ultimately delivering commercial readiness. His insights reveal the essential role of perseverance and the difference that committed investors, like Pangaea Ventures, can make by supporting hard tech founders when the odds are long and the timelines unpredictable. Glenn’s account also explores how the transition to corporate ownership enabled Redlen to accelerate production and unlock new growth, and why hard tech’s longevity and positive impact far surpass what’s possible in other sectors.

The lessons from Glenn’s journey at Redlen reinforce what it means to be part of a collaborative community devoted to planetary health and long-term innovation. This interview continues our 25th anniversary series spotlighting the voices and experiences that have shaped Pangaea Ventures, underscoring the importance of partnership, expertise, and shared vision in building world-changing companies.

And now, our interview with Glenn:

Pangaea Ventures: Over your two decades leading Redlen Technologies, what were some of the core challenges in scaling a hard tech company compared to other sectors?

Glenn Bindley: I spent most of my career in the world of product development in an engineering context. There was always some uncertainty about development costs and schedule, but there was always high confidence of achieving the original product specification, with the likelihood of some additional fractional multiple vs the original cost, and schedule. With hard tech, there simply is no rule of thumb or multiple you can apply, and nothing close to certainty that the end goals can ever be achieved at any cost.  In the engineering world, the product design choices and processes are well understood and the direction to take is not very controversial. With hard tech, you are usually exploring a technical domain that is not established or understood, achieving the end goal will not happen without an element of luck and or intuition.

PV: How did Redlen balance the demands of R&D, manufacturing scale-up, and commercial growth while maintaining innovation and quality?

GB: As a cash flow negative start-up, time and money were our enemies. We had to take risks and short cuts to demonstrate first an “existence proof” of our technology. Prove that we could produce even a single device that met the required performance. Hard tech companies need to achieve a series of continuous value creation events, to survive to the next funding round, to avoid losing our core investors and avoiding a down round. 

First: prove you can produce even a single device, then prove you can make them repeatably, then prove you can make them reliably, then prove you can make them cheaply. Fortunately, we were acquired after proving we could make devices repeatably. The transition from demonstrating existence to moving that existence towards a repeatable manufacturing capability was probably our most challenging step. We had huge pressures to move our technology into a commercial setting, but had not firmly established manufacturing repeatability even at pilot scale. I’m not sure you can “balance” this phase. We unavoidably promised what we hoped could happen as opposed to what was likely to happen. We went through a tough period of trying to scale output and stabilize processes at the same time, out of competitive and financial necessity.

PV: What role did partnerships and investors like Pangaea Ventures play in accelerating Redlen's growth trajectory?

GB: Knowing you have a certain amount of runway and knowing you needed to create shareholder value by progressing the science of a new technology within that runway or you are facing insolvency really focusses the mind and effort.  Having said that … there were times where our progress did not meet expectations at the end of our runway.

Pangaea and a number of other key investors didn’t exactly celebrate that outcome, but they did stick with us and continued to fund what at the time was a very risky proposition. We had more financial near-death experiences that I like to count. Hard tech is a marathon – there are very few investors that can continue to remain supportive – but Pangaea was an investor that understood the nature of our challenge and stood with us.

PV: The acquisition of Redlen by Canon marked a major milestone in the company’s growth journey. How did this transition influence Redlen’s ability to scale production and accelerate market adoption of your technology?

We clearly didn’t know what we didn’t know at the start of this adventure. The level of investment and time needed to achieve product quality and reliability, and cost were far more than we understood. I don’t see any way we could achieve this within a venture funding model and timescale. I would say that transition to a corporate ownership model was an absolute necessity for Redlen to continue to progress towards a volume commercial business

PV: What excites you most about the future of hard tech innovation and its potential impact?

GB: Well, the flip side of just how challenging hard tech is to create, is that the commercial lifecycle and impact of hard tech is equally amplified. A purely engineered product, say a software app, has the lifecycle of a daffodil, whereas a science-based hard tech venture is more like an oak tree.