Founder (CTO) - Industrial Laser Venture

Who We Are

ATUM is a Singapore deep-tech venture builder and investor. We build companies from breakthrough, IP-backed research, bringing capital, operational muscle, and partners from industry, VC, and government into every build. We've built and backed 15 ventures, and we invest in fast-scaling deep-tech with real fundamentals, not hype.

The Venture

Industrial surface preparation, stripping rust, paint, and coatings before recoating, is a dirty, hazardous, multi-billion-dollar global industry still dominated by sandblasting: abrasive grit, dust, silica, hazardous waste, confined-space risk.

We're building the company to replace it, and the hardest, most interesting part of that is an engineering problem waiting for an owner.

A laser system developed at A*STAR already does, in one pass, what sandblasting needs two steps for: it strips contamination and generates the precise surface profile coatings need to bond, no grit, no chemicals, no waste. A working handheld prototype exists today, validated with paint majors, shipyards, refineries, and aerospace OEMs.

The next step is the one that unlocks the mass market: a kilowatt-class system, polygon scanner, liquid cooling, a fully enclosed and sensorised beam path, that hits the throughput abrasive blasting delivers. That's the engineering challenge, and it's why we need a technical founder.

The next version: a kilowatt-class system that matches the throughput of sandblasting while keeping that single-pass precision. That means real engineering, high-power laser integration, a fast polygon scanner, liquid cooling, a fully enclosed and sensorised beam path, all in something rugged enough for industry and simple enough for an operator. Solve it, and you just don't have a better tool, you have the product that retires an entire industrial method.

The Role

You'll be the founding CTO. You'll own the technology, taking it from a validated prototype to a deployable, manufacturable, field-ready product. You'll work alongside a commercial co-founder (CEO), a dedicated ATUM venture team, and the inventor, who joins as your CSO and hands over years of deep process know-how.

Together, we'll:

• Own the next-gen build: high-power laser integration, scanner spec, thermal architecture, beam-delivery safety
• Drive the engineering roadmap and own the system-integrator and supplier relationships
• Design for manufacture: drive the BOM, supply chain, and reliability toward a unit that scales
• Build the technical foundation and team for a product that iterates across generations

This is not a job. It's a founding journey where you share the risk, the upside, and the impact.

Who You Are

• A hardware productiser: You've taken hardware from prototype to product, where you’ve wrestled with thermal limits, reliability, manufacturability, and cost, not just lab performance.

• A systems owner: You can run a complex build end to end, such as specifying components, managing integrators and suppliers, making the tradeoffs that get a real product out the door.
• Technically deep in a relevant domain: Lasers, optics, or photonics are a strong plus. but precision electromechanical systems, robotics, or industrial automation are all directly relevant. What matters is depth, and that you can go toe-to-toe with a world-class inventor and learn the laser layer fast.
• Commercially grounded: You think in BOM cost, yield, and serviceability, and you know the best engineering is what ships and scales.
• Resilient & ready: You have the runway to commit full-time and the grit for the timelines real hardware demands.

Why Build With Us

• A hard problem worth owning: This is a genuine, unsolved engineering challenge with a clear commercial prize, not incremental work, and it's yours to lead.
• A de-risked starting point: A working prototype, deep process IP handed over by the inventor, and real industry pull. You're not betting on a blank page.
• Founder-led: You're the CTO and the technical authority, with meaningful founding equity.
• Funding-ready: ATUM backs the build with pre-seed capital and grant access, plus follow-on funding support from our investor network.
• Hands-on partners: We're in the trenches with you on product, hiring, and fundraising, not just on the cap table.