Deep tech founders can't wait until everything is perfect, but they also can't show up empty-handed. In this webinar, Ola Wassvik sits down with Tommy Myrvang, CEO and founder of clean air technology company Cler, to discuss how he secured VC funding while his product was still far from finished. The secret? Get a stripped-down MVP into real customers' hands, decouple your development streams to de-risk the timeline, and build your patent strategy early. Tommy reveals how his IP due diligence session with Norrsken Launcher became the turning point: when the patent lawyer said "My God, that is clever," he knew the deal was done. Whether you're raising a pre-seed or Series A, this is the playbook for earning investor confidence before your technology is fully baked.

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Below follows a transcribed version of the webinar.

Ola Wassvik: Okay, so welcome to this Lightbringer webinar. Today we have the pleasure of having Tommy Myrvang, who is the CEO and founder of Cler. And as a true startup founder, he's actually in his truck right now with all of his hardware behind him. So you're out installing products today, right Tommy?

Tommy Myrvang: That's true. I'm at the McDonald's restaurant at Munkedal, up close to Norway, today and doing the installation and having the pleasure of being here with you for some time.

Ola Wassvik: Yep. And now we get to share some interesting stuff. So today we're going to talk about the thing that I know that a lot of deep tech founders are struggling with. How to really bring investors, get investors interest before the technology is actually ready.

So let's start with the first question. So Cler, you're handling a massive clean air challenge that really has deep tech at its core. But when you started fundraising, what part of the vision actually resonated most with the investors?

Tommy Myrvang: Well, to start with, I can tell that the HVAC industry and the cleaning of air is a very conservative industry. You know the latest invention that rocked that world was glass fibers in the bag filters. And that happened 50 years ago, so they say. So it's conservative. And what we aim to do is to use a completely different technology for cleaning air where you don't need to change filters. It's a self draining system, self cleaning system and you need to do the service every fifth year. So what resonated with the investors was the ability to clean air at a substantially lower cost, making it possible to making clean air more affordable for more people.

Ola Wassvik: That was the vision that resonated with the VCs that we were talking to. So they really thought about the commercial side early on. They wanted to make sure that you could be profitable and actually had value. Because I know that a lot of deep tech are starting talking about the impact value and how you're going to change the world. But what you're really saying is that they really looked for the money early on.

Tommy Myrvang: Well, I didn't say that Ola, because that was the vision. And the vision has less to do with money. It's a huge market and it's resonating with the strategies that these funds we were talking to had impact. It has huge impact. But what really interested them, what resonated is one thing and what brought their attention was the ability to fast get a cash flow to this. And that was using a vertical, using a far then far from ready product to test out there. We could show them customers had used our technology and were very happy with it. So that was the resonation and the interest.

Ola Wassvik: So yeah, essentially you got in room by saying that you're an impact company and then you really got them hooked by saying that we can actually get this out to customers fairly quickly.

Tommy Myrvang: Correct. Yeah.

Ola Wassvik: When is the right time to actually approach these VCs? When is too early, when is too late. When do you think, what do you think you need to actually be able to go to them?

Tommy Myrvang: Yes, we started to approach VCs without having MVP. And then it was very difficult. It was a very theoretical exercise. It was difficult to get their attention. But when we could start to show them hardware we got more interest in the discussion. I can tell you I've been to a lot of VCs. So when we had hardware we could show, we got more attention because it was a little bit more easy for them to grasp what we were doing. But really when we could show that we had tested at different customers and we could happy customers telling the story, even though the product was far from ready, then we got an interest and then we got real traction from a number of VCs.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah, yeah. I think, and we discussed this previously Tommy, that like if you're a software startup, you can just show the founder team and say this team is going to do amazing things and the VCs will put in money. But with hardware like "slideware" isn't working, and most of the investors don't actually understand what you're really doing.

Tommy Myrvang: No, no. But I can also add there that what we did, we know that our product is far from ready. But since we had worked a little bit with software as well. So we knew that in software you put something together, you test it and you have the customer. Maybe I'm a little bit harsh here but you're using the customer as a test guinea pig. We did the same thing actually because our product is far from ready as I already said. But we were very transparent with the customers that we have tested with and said that this is what we have, this is what we think it can do. Would you be interested in having us demonstrating it for you and then it was all open eyes and ears in this. So we got early adopters, you could say, that was interested in the technology and saw the potential of what it could do when the product is ready.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah, I think that's the thing that a lot of deep tech founders kind of get wrong. They look at software and say, oh, we can't really do that, but you can, you just can't be completely ready. And I think you're underselling a little bit to saying that the product isn't ready. You're actually selling and installing real clients and they're actually paying money to do it. Yeah, it's just that you've scoped down what you're doing to a true minimum viable product, right?

Tommy Myrvang: Yes, it is. And the customers that we are selling to, they also know that we are going to upgrade the product in certain aspects and they are all aware of that. So the product is functioning. It is doing a fantastic job. Yeah, but we have upgrading to do. We have a technology depth to take care of.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah, but basically you're selling them a product and then you're saying, by the way, this product is going to get even better as we continue building it. So the worst state of the product is the thing that you're actually willing to pay for now and then it will just get better from there.

Tommy Myrvang: Yeah, yeah. So true, so true.

Ola Wassvik: So let's move on to the next question. Because the thing you talked about here is like setting realistic expectations both with customers and investors. When you have such long timelines as you often have, do you have any tips or advice to other founders?

Tommy Myrvang:Well, you need to own the timeline and you need to be able to break down the timeline into very concrete sub deliveries. So it's clear to the VC what is happening when and what is needed in order to move on. And if you own that timeline and you can describe it in a way that is graspable, then it's much easier. Like the VCs that we have chosen and chosen, they have chosen us, of course, they are fully aware that the full potential and the impact part of our product development journey is two years down the road. They're fully aware of that and they accept it.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah. Because you told them and you were honest with them.

Tommy Myrvang: Yeah. Yes. Yes.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah. Perfect. Excellent advice. So let's move on. One other thing that I think is very, very common for a lot of deep tech startups is that you have multiple disciplines. So in your case you have the hardware design, you have the material choices and then on top of it you have software. How do you de-risk and make that work when you have this type of multi-disciplinary company?

Tommy Myrvang: Yes, I, you know I have spent 25 years with product development so I have made my fair share of mistakes and one of the mistakes that I think is for me at least, and the project that I have been in is that we have been all the parallel parts have been intertwined. Let's say the cases that you have here you have hardware, you have software, automation and then you have material choices. If you have a time plan that has interdependencies between these, you get a very complex product development.

So what we have tried to do is to decouple these parts so that we have one part that is hardware development and we have one path that is automation/software. And then the third one is then material choices and how we have decided to work with them is that the MVP is all about hardware. So we have a completely stupid product out there. It's an on and off function and it works like magic. The customers are happy with it. You know, nothing can go wrong because it's on and off. So they're happy with it. So that is our MVP.

And then as a parallel path we have automation because we want to monitor it, we want to get data back and we want to be able to see how it works out there. That is a completely parallel path. And the dependency with the hardware is how you connect sensors, how you connect the control boxes and stuff. And that might lead to more upgrading costs that we are expecting. But it is what it is. By that we have been able to start to sell to customers. And then we might have a higher cost when we upgrade from an automation point of view.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah. So you really again gone back to the absolute minimum that you could actually build a product on, completely decoupled the other things. I completely agree. This is something that a lot of people do wrong. They try to do everything at once and as we all know something goes wrong, and then basically the entire project lags because one thing out of these four or five different things.

Also you talked when we talked before this call actually that you've decided actively not to optimize everything from the start. Can you talk a little bit about that.

Tommy Myrvang: Yes, yeah, no, and that is more on the automation side. Because when we have sensors that is controlling the air quality coming out and the air quality going in, then you get a lot of data that you can use to optimize the functionality of the product. But we have decided that this is part of our list of IP that we want to work with, but we're not actively working with it right now.

And then if we go over to materials, materials is an area where we have all the potential in the world to further optimize. But again if you don't have a minimum viable product that you get out there, you test it, you get knowledge, then you might be self optimizing because you are optimizing on the complete wrong stuff. But getting it out, getting knowledge, getting the real life performance, then you start to optimize. So that part has been completely halted. And now we are starting to realize what we should optimize and then we will go into materials, we will go into automation with that.

Ola Wassvik: So that was an active decision from your end to not optimize and getting that customer feedback about what parts of your product actually works and what did you only think you needed to do? I know that a lot of the tech companies have engineers in their teams and engineers like to optimize things, but you need to get out and get your hands dirty with the customers.

Tommy Myrvang: And there I can also add that I am an engineer so I want to optimize, I want to do this, I want to do that. But I have a great team. We are a great team. So I'm held back. Get your act together Tommy. Now focus on the MVP. Get the knowledge from the customer. Okay, okay.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree. I'm also an engineer, but I've usually been the one who's been telling engineers that we need to actually listen to the customer here and see what they actually want. So when you have done this fundraising and getting started, how have the view on IP and patents been? Because you've raised money both from soft funding from government grants, but also from quite a lot from Venture Capital. Can you talk a little bit about the difference? Do they view IP differently and where are patents more important?

Tommy Myrvang: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I can tell you from a starting point, I've been working with, as you know, IP and development all my career. So I'm aware of IP, and why you need it. And so on. So IP has been a part of our journey from the beginning. We haven't applied for anything from the beginning but we have known it and we have a list of now we have 50 ideas that we are considering and that was collected since 2018.

When we started our journey, when we talked with soft funding, IP was rarely brought up. We had it in our information. But there were rarely any follow up questions or any interest in that part. And that might be good because soft funding you have very early in your process and then you might not be ready for IP. I think it's a good thing that that is not a focus. When you are at that stage it was more like a checkbox. So you have IP and you know what you're talking about.

"Having a patent applied for was the deal maker."— Tommy Myrvang, CEO of Cler

Tommy Myrvang: Yes, yeah. Yes. When we came to VCs, IP was very important. And IP strategies was very important. It was very important that they saw that we had a portfolio of ideas that were patentable maybe. And having a patent applied for was the deal maker. We had a long due diligence with our VC Norrsken Launcher. And I would say that the tipping, what tipped us over to yes was the fact that we could describe our IP strategy, our portfolio of ideas and actually the idea that we have filed a patent for when we scrutinized that with the patent lawyer. That was the yes.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah. You actually have a little funny story in there to tell me that because a lot of people, just as a little bit of background for this, you can't just file patent for anything. You can potentially but you shouldn't. You need to have something really great. And that can really come out. So please go ahead.

Tommy Myrvang: Yeah, well I had this, it was a very very good dialogue with the patent lawyer and we were ping ponging back and forth. And then when we... The first idea that we filed a patent for is we are, I'm going a little bit technical here, we are... our product is utilizing over critical speeds in a rotor system. Meaning that it finds its own balance. Yeah. And that has many advantages but in order to get up to those over critical speeds you need to go through the critical speeds and then the system is shaking like crazy and you don't want that so that is the weakness of such a system.

But our idea was that we are using the weakness as a strength. Yep. And when I explained this to the patent lawyer, and I can also say that the whole team from Norrsken Launcher was sitting there, you know, as an audience, listening to our fight back and forth. And when I had explained it to him so he understood it, he was talking to himself. And he said like, my God, that is clever. And then I looked at the audience and then I understood. Okay, now it's a yes.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah, I completely agree. I had a similar story. This is almost 20 years ago when we... I think people underestimate how deep a VC will go because just as you say, they won't do the due diligence themselves. They will take in an expert who will try to ask you the hard questions. And just as you said, you might have them as an audience while you're doing it, just to see you sweat. And I had a very similar story when doing this with Intel. Basically, the Intel guys were sitting over in one corner just listening to me getting well grilled by this patent expert. And it ended up in a fairly similar way when they actually realized that we had something that protected the entire technology. It's just like, okay, yep, now we can feel here.

Tommy Myrvang: Yeah. Yeah, that was interesting.

Ola Wassvik: So if we move on to the fundraising journey that you've had so far, tell me about something that you would absolutely do the same way as you've done.

Tommy Myrvang: I would definitely reach out to as many VCs as possible. Because what I've come to realize is that it's a numbers game. It has less to do with you and your product and your team and more to do with timing. Sometimes you're too small, you're too big, you're too early, you're too late. You have the wrong approach. So there are so many things that are making you not interesting for the VC, but at the right time, you get it. So just go out there, visit a lot of VCs. Don't be turned down from the no's, because most of the time it's not about you, it's the timing.

Ola Wassvik: And you also talked about that, just to double down on that, I just talked to one deep tech startup a couple of weeks back here, and they were quite happy that they're going in for their pre seed round. They said yeah, we're talking to two different investors. I'm like okay, so add a zero to those two. So you're talking to 20 then you're probably in the right ballpark. But you told me also about the difference between like deep tech and software investors. Talk a little bit about that because that's something that you really went up against yourselves, right?

Tommy Myrvang: Yes. No, and that was the thing that I would do less of. And that was I would do a better due diligence on the VCs before meeting them. Because I talked to a lot of VCs that was okay. It said that they were impact. It said that they were this and that. But when you looked into their homepage and you looked at the companies that they had been investing in, it was all software, all AI. Then meeting those companies it was very difficult to come across with our message. So I would do again a lot of VCs, but I would do some due diligence and maybe taking out the ones that are too much profile towards software, AI and those areas.

Ola Wassvik: Yep. Yeah. Because as much as they may want to understand hardware and deep tech, they probably don't. So you're both wasting your time mostly, but you're also slightly wasting their time because they will never get it. So you need to...

So when do you really know that you found the one? Like finding the love of your life, you need to go in there. So how do you know that you've actually found the one?

Tommy Myrvang: When you are an engineer and you find the solution to your problem, you know it. Yeah, you just know it. And the way you confirm that it's right is that a good solution only gets better over time. A bad solution only gets worse over time. You need to do this with a bad solution. You need to do that and then. And it's the same thing in the relationship. You know it when it's right.

To me at least it was like that. And I can tell you the story of when we met with the second meeting, was the first... my first meeting was the second meeting with Norrsken Launcher and that was also the first meeting of their managing director, his name is Erik Engellau-Nilsson. And we had just shaken hands and then he just explains, oh, I've spent the whole weekend reading about you and your technology. I'm blown away. Yeah. Then I knew that this would be a very good partner. Not only from a financial point of view but also from getting the support.

So you know it when you know it and if you have some bad feeling in your stomach then it might not be the right one. You might need to go for it anyhow because that's your alternative. But when you know it, you know it.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah, I completely agree with this. This is something that I think that a lot of founders, they settle when they... and they only settle because they didn't talk to enough investors. They should have talked to five times as many and then they would have found that one that as you said had the right timing, actually understood what you're doing and that you're really vibing with that. And this I don't think is any different between a deep tech company and a SaaS company. The investor and you really need to work together for a long time and that means that the relationship really needs to start at a good point because I'm sure there's going to be a few low points during the journey. So you need to start out in a good position.

Tommy Myrvang: Yeah.

Ola Wassvik: So Tommy, any final advice to deep tech founders that are looking to raise capital, that we haven't talked about so far. Do you have any tips or tricks?

Tommy Myrvang: Well, I would reiterate what we have talked about. Get your prototypes out there. You need to get them out to customers to learn stuff, decouple as much as possible to de-risk as much as possible and meet with investors very early, start talking to them. Not with the intention maybe from the beginning to raise funds but to start to get that network. That would be my advices actually.

Ola Wassvik: Yeah. And if I were to add one thing is to actually make that MVP slightly portable so you can at least put it on a truck because it's much more in the early stages, it's much easier to go to the investor than to have them come to your place. So we actually had ones where we couldn't move the prototype. The prototype were like 300 kilos to the floor and it made such a big difference making it 40 kilos and being able to bring it on a flight.

Tommy Myrvang: Yeah, yeah, I can resonate with that.

Ola Wassvik: So thank you very much for today, Tommy. And to all your founders out there, I hope you've enjoyed this. And feel free to reach out if you have more questions. We'll post the information so you, and of course you can connect with Tommy and me on LinkedIn if you have more questions. So thank you very much for today.

Tommy Myrvang: Thank you very much for having me, guys. Take care. Bye.

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