Bernard Lupien

General Partner | Consulate General of Canada (CTA Boston)

Cambridge, MA, UNITED STATES

Bernard Lupien is an expert in commercializing technologies from breakthrough science innovation.

Biography

Bernard Lupien has worked with talented people at amazing companies where he has learned to commercialize technologies from breakthrough science innovation. He is a General Partner at Rhapsody Ventures, which invests in start-ups in the hard sciences.

Starting his career as a technology developer and progressing to commercial roles in the area of robotics, lithium-ion batteries and advanced materials, he worked with fantastic teams to achieve what is challenging yet extraordinarily rewarding: upsetting industry incumbents and the status quo by bringing cutting-edge innovation to the marketplace.

Industry Expertise (2)

VC and Private Equity

Corporate Leadership

Areas of Expertise (6)

Start Ups

Commercialization

Entrepeneurship

Business Development

Product Development

Strategic Planning

Education (2)

Massachussetts Institute of Technology - Sloan School of Management: M.B.A., Entrepreneurship/Sales 2006

McGill University: B.Sc., Chemistry 1997

Affiliations (1)

Chinova Bioworks : Board Member

Accomplishments (2)

The Patrick J. McGovern, Jr. Award

Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2006

MIT 100K Business Plan Competition - Semifinalist

2006

Links (1)

Medium

Selected Media Appearances (1)

This startup can keep fruit fresh for weeks longer

Crain's Chicago Business

2017-07-13

Bernard Lupien, a general partner at Rhapsody, says Hazel already has an impressive list of customers, including shippers of avocados and melons. "Market fielding and acceptance has been much faster than most hard-science startups," he says...

Selected Articles (2)

Selling for Startups: Be Your Own Rainmaker

Medium

2018-03-28

Working closely with early-stage “hard-tech” startups, I routinely hear a myth: that being successful in sales is some kind of black magic best left to back-slapping, charismatic schmoozers that “know how to close”...

Big Companies are from Mars, Startups are from Venus

Medium

2018-03-23

While recently helping a startup secure development funding from a large company, I started reflecting on why the two have so much difficulty working together. Large companies complain that startups are hard to work with, have unrealistic expectations, are too ambitious and are frustratingly impatient. Conversely, startups lament that big companies are slow, uninspired and don’t value the breakthrough potential of their technologies. This leads to conflict...