Growth
Second Thoughts with Dr. Simon Thomas: A Founder Success Podcast
- Growth
- Video
- 7 minutes read
What do you do when your first electronics lab has a hole in the roof—and you’ve just taken investors’ money? In this episode of Second Thoughts, Dr. Simon Thomas (co-founder & CEO of Paragraf) shares the hard-won lessons of scaling deep tech: fundraising, focus, hiring, and building real-world impact from breakthrough materials.
- Deep tech fundraising gets harder as you scale—credibility, timing and global capital matter.
- New tech isn’t just built, it’s implemented: customer education and integration can drain time and talent.
- Prioritisation is survival: balance near-term feasibility, market value and technical readiness.
- Culture doesn’t scale by accident—make purpose visible so every role feels connected to impact.
Welcome back to Second Thoughts
In this episode, I am joined by a founder operating at the sharp end of deep tech: where the science is complex, the go-to-market is rarely straightforward, and scaling means building not just a product, but an ecosystem.
Dr. Simon Thomas is the co-founder and CEO of Paragraf, a pioneer in graphene-based electronic devices. Since launching in 2017, he’s led the company through raising over US$150m and expanding operations across the UK, USA, UAE and China. With a background spanning academia and the semiconductor industry, Simon brings a rare blend of scientific depth and commercial experience to the challenge of scaling next-generation materials.
This podcast explores core themes such as founder resilience under pressure (from “snow in the lab” moments to runway-critical decisions), the realities of fundraising for hardware and deep tech—especially the tougher later-stage UK landscape and the role of overseas capital—plus the “implementation gap” of helping partners redesign systems to unlock breakthrough performance.
It also covers how Paragraf prioritises where to focus amid endless applications, what changes as teams scale (including evolving hiring needs, keeping strategic discussions out of the technical weeds, and sustaining culture through shared purpose), and how UK infrastructure and ecosystem fragmentation can shape global expansion choices, all anchored by vision-led leadership towards a “TSMC for 2D materials” ambition with performance and energy-efficiency impact at its core.
Watch the full podcast below.
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