First pilot cohort now forming · Join the waitlist →
Build Without Borders venture studio presents
BWB Pilots Our wedge

Your lab technology has a first real test site. We'll help you find it.

BWB finds real-world pilot sites and funding for university climate technologies, and captures the evidence licensees and investors need.

For tech transfer offices, university researchers and science-based founders, including those in emerging ecosystems.

Join the waitlist →

Our first pilot cohort is forming now. Join the waitlist and stay tuned. We'll be in touch when we open it.

01 · The problem

Most university inventions are never licensed.

Early climate technologies need proof they work at scale, and tech transfer offices rarely have the sites, partners or funding to get it.

On the bench: this digester makes biogas from food-waste slurry at 37 °C. Licensees and investors need to see the same process running at a real site, on real feedstock, for months.

For funders
$125B+

Estimated global financing still needed for first-of-a-kind climate projects, the step between a pilot and commercial scale.

Prime Coalition, Charting the FOAK Gap, 2025
For pilot seekers
63%

of patents held by the top 58 US universities (2002–2010) were not licensed to large companies or sold.

Technological Forecasting and Social Change, 2020
For pilot hosts
58%

of methane escaping US municipal landfills comes from food waste. Half of food waste's carbon breaks down into landfill gas within about 3.6 years.

US EPA, Quantifying Methane Emissions from Landfilled Food Waste, 2023
02 · How it works

From lab bench to pilot site, in four steps.

  1. 01 You share a technology.
  2. 02 We match it with pilot hosts and funders.
  3. 03 We package the pilot and find the funding.
  4. 04 You get evidence for licensing or a spinout.
03 · Why without borders

The right test site is rarely next door.

Climate technologies from emerging ecosystems often can't find pilot sites, testbeds or funding at home. Technologies from leading universities often need real-world conditions found elsewhere. BWB connects the two, matching technologies with pilot hosts and funders wherever they are.

04 · The tool

First Cohort

A tool that ranks accelerators, lab fellowships and testbeds for a university technology.

First Cohort — coming soon
Ranks three kinds of opportunity
01
Accelerators
02
Lab fellowships
03
Testbeds
05 · Current focus

Organic waste to value.

Technologies that turn organic waste into something useful, such as biochar, compost, biogas and gasification.

Biochar
Compost
Biogas
Gasification
06 · About BWB

Build Without Borders is a venture studio for overlooked founders and innovators, led by Tanya Smith, a biochemist turned venture builder and Vital Voices Fellow. After building ventures across Denmark, the US and the Caribbean through programs including The Engine Blueprint, Startup Denmark, Accelerace and MIT I-Corps, she saw exactly where the system breaks for science-based founders. BWB is built to fix it.

Have a climate technology that needs a test site?

Join the waitlist and stay tuned.

We're forming our first pilot cohort now and will be in touch when it opens.

Join the waitlist
First pilot cohort

Join the waitlist

We're forming our first pilot cohort now. We'll be in touch when we open it.

Having trouble viewing the form? Open the waitlist form in a new tab →

Funders and pilot hosts interested in partnering: hello@buildwithoutborders.ventures