For Companies
Build a capital sequence the company can execute.
Deep-tech, healthtech, and dual-use teams sequencing non-dilutive, venture, and strategic capital against real milestones.
View the pathCapital Formation · Commercialization · Federal Strategy
Capital Is Not the Constraint.Conversion Is.
Built for deep-tech companies, regional innovation platforms, research institutions, and capital vehicles that must turn funding into scaled outcomes.
We build the capital, commercialization, and operating systems that convert federal funding, private investment, and innovation programs into deployed capital, commercial adoption, and scalable companies.
Who We Serve
Innovation-Driven Companies
Deep-tech, healthtech, and dual-use companies navigating federal, private, and strategic capital.
View the pathRegional Innovation Platforms
NSF Engines, hubs, accelerators, institutes, and multi-institution coalitions.
View the pathResearch & Public Institutions
Universities, research organizations, agencies, and economic-development authorities.
View the pathFunds & Capital Vehicles
Emerging managers, strategic funds, public-private vehicles, and institutional capital platforms.
View the pathPersonally attributable leadership
$250M+
Federal funding and contracts led as PI or Co-PI. Capital and contracts led directly by Heath Naquin as Principal Investigator or Co-Principal Investigator.
Program and portfolio outcomes
$173M
Private capital raised by Capital Readiness companies
See the case~$200M
Non-dilutive capital secured by Capital Readiness companies
See the case$115M+
Completed fund closes supported
See the caseResults achieved by companies, funds, and programs supported through this work. Reported as program-level outcomes, not personal attribution.
Selected institutions across prior leadership, advisory work, and programs
- National Science Foundation
- National Institutes of Health
- U.S. Small Business Administration
- U.S. Department of State
- European Investment Fund
- The Engine / Builder Platform
- Kauffman Foundation
- MD Anderson Cancer Center
Inclusion reflects prior leadership, program, advisory, investment, or institutional work. It does not imply current endorsement, partnership, or client status.
The Thesis
Funding is available. Execution across capital, regulation, and commercialization is not.
Most organizations are not capital-starved. They are conversion-starved — unable to translate available capital into deployment, deployment into capability, and capability into scaled outcomes.
Problem
Capital, regulatory pathways, and commercialization run as separate workstreams. Each one stalls waiting on the others.
Insight
Conversion failure is structural, not motivational. It shows up as missing sequencing, missing evidence, and missing operating cadence.
Solution
Install the operating system: a sequenced capital stack, pursuit architecture, and program infrastructure that compound instead of compete.
Cost of Inaction
Conversion failure is expensive.
The cost of an unresolved conversion constraint is rarely booked as a loss. It shows up as time, dilution, and mandates that quietly do not renew.
Time
Twelve to twenty-four months spent pursuing capital the organization is not structurally ready to convert.
Terms
Rounds closed from a weaker position than the underlying asset warrants, at avoidable dilution.
Non-dilutive capital left on the table
Federal and program capital that fits the mandate but is never positioned, sequenced, or pursued with discipline.
Renewal risk
Programs that cannot evidence conversion lose re-up, and the next mandate goes to an organization that can.
Deployment drag
Committed capital that sits because the pipeline and governance to deploy it were never built.
Capabilities
Four systems. Built to convert.
Deployed independently or as an integrated capital operating model.
01
Capital Formation Systems
Design and deploy capital strategies across venture, federal funding, and hybrid structures.
Detail 02Commercialization Infrastructure
Build programs that move companies from concept to revenue, not just participation.
Detail 03Investment Platform Design
Structure funds, syndicates, and capital vehicles aligned with real deployment outcomes.
Detail 04Federal Capital Strategy & Program Positioning
Forged Catalyst helps companies and institutions understand federal priorities, align opportunities with agency missions, structure capital and pursuit strategies, build credible partnerships, and prepare decision-grade concepts and engagement materials.
Detail
Heath Naquin
Founder & Managing Principal
The Operator Behind the Platform
Institutional systems, built by someone who has had to run them.
Founder-led. Principal-delivered. Built for institutional mandates. Every engagement is delivered by the principal, drawing on 25+ years operating inside venture capital, government innovation policy, and global ecosystem development — the three systems that have to align before capital converts.
- 25+ years across venture capital, government innovation policy, and global ecosystem development
- Advised U.S. innovation agencies including NSF, NIH, ARPA-H, BARDA, SBA, and the U.S. State Department
- $250M+ in funding and contracts led as PI or Co-PI
Principal-led by design.
Forged Catalyst Group maintains a deliberately limited engagement portfolio. Strategy, architecture, executive sessions, and principal deliverables are led directly by Heath Naquin rather than delegated to a junior consulting team.
Where an engagement requires additional capacity, Forged Catalyst brings in vetted specialist partners under principal direction. The principal remains accountable for the work product in every case.
Who We Work With
Institutions accountable for outcomes, not activity.
Four conversion paths. Each one names the failure modes we see and the systems we build against them.
For Regional Innovation Platforms
Turn program funding into a regional commercialization system.
Hubs, Engines, institutes, and coalitions converting program funding into companies and deployed capital.
View the pathFor Funds & Capital Vehicles
Design the vehicle around deployment reality.
Emerging managers, strategics, and public-private platforms aligning thesis and structure before formation.
View the pathResearch & Public Institutions
Build capital infrastructure institutions can defend—and operate.
Universities, research organizations, agencies, and economic-development authorities converting appropriations, awards, and institutional capital into measurable outcomes.
View the pathEngagement Models
A productized ladder, from diagnostic to embedded leadership.
Engagements start narrow and escalate only when the work justifies it.
011–2 weeks
Capital Conversion Snapshot
$4,750
A focused diagnostic identifying where capital conversion is breaking down, what is constraining progress and which interventions should be prioritized.
- Positioning and capital-stack diagnostic
- Constraint identification
- Prioritized action set
023–4 weeks
Capital Strategy Brief
$10,000–$15,000
A decision-grade capital and commercialization strategy covering opportunity alignment, funding architecture, institutional positioning and execution priorities.
- Opportunity and funding-source alignment
- Sequenced funding architecture
- Institutional positioning and readiness gaps
036–12 weeks
Strategy & Pursuit Architecture
From $30,000
For complex federal pursuits, capitalization strategies, institutional programs, funds and multi-party initiatives.
- Pursuit and partnership architecture
- Program or vehicle design
- Narrative and diligence assets
04Flagship engagement · Ongoing
Fractional Chief Capital Officer
Custom Retainer
Senior operating leadership for organizations that need sustained capital strategy, institutional alignment and execution without adding a full-time executive.
- Executive-level ownership of the integrated capital strategy
- Federal, venture, strategic, and program pipelines run as one system
- Board, funder, and diligence preparation
- Operating cadence, dashboards, and accountability for conversion
Selected Work
Constraint. Intervention. Outcome.
Client details are anonymized or held pending approval. The structure of the work is not.
Turning investor readiness into an operating discipline
Companies were entering institutional raises with predictable diligence failures—unclear cap tables, incomplete data rooms, regulatory assumptions, and capital strategies that did not survive investor scrutiny.
Framework originally developed for the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation. Recent company outcomes were generated through the University City Science Center's Capital Readiness program and are reported at the program level. Capital was secured by participating companies — not raised by Forged Catalyst Group or Heath Naquin.
NSF Engines Builder Platform — Strategic Advisory and Implementation Support
Regional innovation coalitions carrying multi-year federal mandates need practical operating capacity — governance, reporting, contracting, evaluation, systems management, and commercialization — alongside the research and technology agenda itself.
Consulting support, 2024–present, delivered through The Builder Platform, powered by The Engine. Program references describe publicly available objectives only.
Intelligence + Tools
Operator-grade assessments, not blog posts.
Structured instruments used inside engagements, being released in limited early access.
Live
Capital Strategy Diagnostic
Identifies where capital strategy, sequencing, and execution are breaking down.
- Source and sequence coherence
- Evidence gaps by tranche
- Operating cadence failure points
Field Notes
A field briefing on capital sequencing, federal pursuit discipline, and commercialization friction — written from inside the work, sent when there is something worth sending.
6 min read
The Conversion Gap: Why Funded Innovation Ecosystems Still Fail to Produce Scaled Companies
Capital availability and capital conversion are different problems. Where the drop-off actually happens, and what functioning conversion systems measure instead.
Read6 min read
Federal Funding Is a Capital Stack, Not a Grant Calendar
Non-dilutive capital fails when it is managed as a submission schedule. Each dollar needs a specific risk-removal job, sequenced against everything else on the stack.
Read5 min read
When Capital Complexity Outgrows Founder-Led Execution
The signals that capital work has become an operating function, how the role differs from a CFO or fundraiser, and what the first ninety days look like.
ReadEngage
The constraint is rarely capital. Let's find the real one.
The Capital Strategy Diagnostic takes about three minutes and returns a structured read on where conversion is breaking down.