www.HartfordBusiness.com • September 17, 2018 • Hartford Business Journal 3
Newsmakers
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Alexander Shkolnik | President, LiquidPiston Inc.
By Sean Teehan
steehan@HartfordBusiness.com
On the heels of receiving a $2.5 million con-
tract from the Pentagon for the second phase of
a project to build lightweight engines, LiquidPis-
ton Inc. President Alexander
Shkolnik said the startup
has embarked on another
round of fundraising. And
it's using a non-traditional
model to do it: crowdfund-
ing. The Bloomfield-based
company, which was
established in 2011, devel-
ops high-efficiency rotary
combustion engines.
During an initial crowdfunding campaign last
year, LiquidPiston raised about $1.3 million from
online investors through a website called We-
funder, according to Shkolnik. The company can
now raise up to an additional $1 million.
Shkolnik grew up in Hartford and worked as a
research and postdoctoral associate at MIT before
founding LiquidPiston. He chose to headquarter
the company in Connecticut, in part, because the
state offers access to desirable machine shops and
manufacturers like East Hartford's Pratt & Whit-
ney, and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. in Stratford. Also,
his grandparents live in the Hartford area.
Why did LiquidPiston recently launch a new
round of crowdfunding?
We've been approached by a number of people
looking to support what we do, asking how they
can help. Since our first Wefunder campaign was
oversubscribed, we decided to open it up recently
for round two. We've been working with the team
at Wefunder and have already hit $404,390 as of
Sept. 11.
What are your overall goals for LiquidPiston?
In the near term we are determined to bring a
first product to market as quickly as possible to
demonstrate the key advantages of our compact
and efficient engine technology. In the long term,
we intend to design and develop engines for vari-
ous applications and customers, basically intro-
ducing the engine anywhere that piston engines
had been used historically.
This was the first company you've headed. What
was the learning curve like moving from aca-
demia to entrepreneurship?
MIT was an amazing place. I was surrounded
by entrepreneurs, to the point where if you were
not founding or catalyzing a startup, you were
kind of an outlier. I think MIT attracts folks who
have it in their blood to want to change the world
through science and technology, and with that
drive, it's not a big step from MIT's academic
environment into entrepreneurship.
Are there any industries, companies or govern-
ment bodies you plan to pursue as potential
partners or customers?
The technology is scalable — down to hand-
held lawn and garden equipment, and up to
1,000-plus horsepower, which could be used in
helicopters for propulsion or anywhere where
piston engines are used today. This is a $400
billion-per-year market.
VERBATIM
Herbst's frustrations
"I have said for several years ... that UConn's financial struggles tied to reduced state
support ... would eventually be reflected in U.S. News. It is frustrating to lose ground in
this ranking because of that."
University of Connecticut President Susan Herbst responding to UConn's
No. 22 ranking in U.S. News & World Report's latest top U.S. public
universities report, which is down from last year's No. 18 ranking.
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Alexander Shkolnik
