Before You Hire a Marketer
SOSV's Supriya Agarwal on what deep tech founders should be doing themselves — and when to bring in the pros
Deep tech has a marketing problem. Not a lack of talent — but a language barrier between those building the future and the world that needs to understand why it matters. The best marketers in this space aren't just translators, they're architects of belief.
Staying In Orbit exists to surface those voices. Each issue, we sit down with a marketing leader at a company defining what's next in space, science, and deep tech — and ask them how they think, what they've learned, and where the field is heading.
— Chandler, Founder & Chief Galactic Officer at Imagine Milk
This month we're hearing from someone who treats events as a data engine, not just an awareness play. Supriya Agarwal spent a decade in B2B marketing across financial services, fintech, and investment platforms before joining SOSV —an early stage deep tech fund — where she leads investor-facing events and built their investor CRM from scratch. Her job is to get the right investors into the right rooms, and she does it by importing B2B rigor into a corner of the VC world that mostly runs on vibes. We sat down to hear how she does it.
Inside SOSV’s Marketing Playbook
Supriya Agarwal, Director of Marketing, Data, AI @ SOSV
What's the biggest challenge in attracting investors to deep tech events?
The complexity of the messaging. Deep tech founders tend to describe their work in highly technical jargon and buzzwords, which is hard for the average investor to parse — most aren't subject matter experts. The fix is to demystify the technology: focus on the problem you're solving and how it improves lives. And remember there are two kinds of investors — those investing purely for returns, and those who want to leave a legacy alongside returns. The legacy-driven group needs to see how your technology is "making a dent in the universe," to borrow from Steve Jobs.
What advice would you give a small company trying to build a community in deep tech?
Start the community early — and start cheap. Once you have an idea, find the people who would value the solution and gather them somewhere lightweight: a Slack group, a WhatsApp group. I recently spoke with a physical AI founder who'd just moved to the US and built a Slack community around physical AI to share contacts, experiences, and information. From there, branch out: LinkedIn thought leadership next, then a newsletter via your website or Substack. The earliest marketing has to come from the founding team. Even if you're technical, you have to practice telling your story — you'll eventually need to sell your product, so you might as well start now.
Checkout the white paper she wrote on 'Marketing for Deep Tech Startups'
At what point should a deep tech startup formalize marketing?
After product-market fit. Before that, lean on the founding team — the CEO, CTO, and chief scientific officer can carry the load through LinkedIn thought leadership, white papers, and speaking at high-profile events. Once you've validated that the product is needed in the market and have some traction, that's when you bring in an in-house marketer or an agency.
One important caveat: deep tech founders often confuse marketing and sales. Imagine walking down a street of shops — marketing is what gets you in the door, sales is what gets you to buy something inside. Both need to become formal functions after product-market fit, but conflating them earlier leads founders to expect marketing to solve problems it can't.
Supriya Agarwal leads marketing, data, and technology strategy at SOSV, based in New Jersey. SOSV is an early stage deep tech venture fund with offices in Manhattan (New York City), Newark (New Jersey), and San Francisco, where the team works alongside the deep tech founders going through its six-month residency — a daily reminder that breakthrough science needs a go-to-market engine just as badly as it needs a lab.
In The Imagine Milk Orbit 🚀
🇯🇵 We were in Japan! - Visiting our friends at ispace in their new office in Tokyo. They recently announce their new ULTRA Lunar Lander integrating Japanese and U.S. lander models.
🗽 NYSE Space Summit 2026 - Spent the day at the NYSE's annual space summit — a room full of familiar faces, half of whom rang the bell and half of whom are about to.
NYSE Space Summit 2026
🪖 SOF Week — Imagine Milk is offering conference & trade show coverage at all of the major aerospace conferences, starting with SOF Week in Tampa this year! We’ll be in California next for the Space Tech Expo in June if you need any content onsite.
Shoot for Aviation Week with ARKEUS at SOF Week
Science Communicator
of the Month:
Kristina Gatto 🔭
Kristina Gatto is a 24-year-old astrophysicist pursuing a PhD in physics at the University of North Dakota, with a focus in cosmology. She is the founder and CEO of NOVA (Network for Outreach and Vocation in Astronomy), an outreach organization dedicated to expanding access to astronomy by building community and providing resources and career roadmaps for students.
