Steve Hane
Senior Advisor
Steve Hane joined SEP in January of 2022 to serve in the role of Senior Advisor, bringing nearly four decades of experience in high technology companies of all stages and sizes. He has focused on technology maturation and company formation in early-stage tech ventures over the last 25 years, working in seven start-ups, four as CEO. Working across the timescale of company development from inception to exit, Steve has raised nearly $150M in multiple rounds of venture funding, with a consistent track record of getting technologies matured through the commercialization lifecycle.
Steve’s career began as a sequence of business development leadership roles at ADC Telecommunications and LightPointe, hallmarked by creating and leading high growth-rate business development teams of up to $500M in revenue run rate. As the CEO and catalyst to the pivot of Picolight (vertical-cavity surface-emitting laser technology), Steve led a 7X growth in revenue and a 25X increase of enterprise value realized in a sale of the company to JDSU, being awarded the 2007 “Colorado Company of the Year” by the Colorado Photonics Industry Association (CPIA). As the CEO and first employee of Ampulse Corporation (solar PV technology development effort to commercialize technology from the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) and Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) for heteroepitaxial c-Si on metallic foils), Steve was awarded the 2008 NREL “National Cleantech Entrepreneur of the Year” honor and the 2011 “Excellence in Technology Transfer” Award from the US Department of Energy / Federal Laboratory Consortium. As CEO of Terralux, he led a strategic restructuring that increased product introduction rate by 5X and developed a cloud-based IoT building intelligence/energy efficiency platform. During his tenure, Terralux achieved a 4-year revenue CAGR of 57% and was recognized as the “2015 High Impact Company of the Year” by the Colorado Cleantech Industry Association (CCIA). His most recent role as CEO of Prima-Temp led to the strategic partner funding, development, and regulatory certification of an AI-assisted wireless IoT biotech sensor technology being marketed in Europe in 2022.
Steve has worked directly or consulted with CEOs in numerous technology companies, was active with CCIA during its formation period, and has been a guest lecturer at the Harvard Business School, the University of Colorado, and other industry organizations on commercialization strategies. He holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Geological Engineering from the University of Minnesota.
