“The world is open! Be a Citizen of the World.”

CEO Anton Chernenko champions openness as he is gliding fluidly in the global innovation ecosystems and builds the runway for Cornea Sense to take flight.

“Research cannot wait until the science is fully finished before commercialization begins,” reflects research spin off CEO Anton Chernenko in San Francisco.


Anton Chernenko, PhD in Evolutionary Biology, MBA, Founder and CEO of Cornea Sense sees the world as a place full of opportunities without borders. Silicon Valley is just one opportunity among many, and he shuttles through them all with ease.

“The world is open. Be a citizen of the world. Don’t get stuck in one place — be open to working anywhere.”

Aalto University spin-off called Cornea Sense is developing a medical diagnostic device designed to help ophthalmologists diagnose and monitor eye and metabolic diseases such as Dry Eye Disease and diabetes by providing direct and specific ocular surface hydration data.

The company recently participated in the SILTA program which takes young entrepreneurs to San Francisco to validate their products boots on the ground.

The young Founder and CEO describes the six-week SILTA program as “very useful,” and says the strongest feeling he was left with afterward was excitement.

Silicon Valley Runs on Speed

Anton Chernenko wanted to better understand what opportunities might exist for Cornea Sense in the United States.

“At the same time, we got to know the ecosystem — investors, FDA experts, consultants and the broader healthcare network.” Chernenko says.

For Chernenko, SILTA also served as an important credibility builder when opening conversations in the United States.

The schedule was intense. During the program, Chernenko’s LinkedIn updates seemed to come simultaneously from the Baltics, the UK, Finland and the U.S. At times, it became difficult to tell where he was.

Still, the experience gave him a practical understanding of what operating in the American innovation ecosystem really feels like.

“In Silicon Valley and the U.S., the speed is extremely high,” he says.

“Your elevator pitch has to be ready because you may meet a potential investor, customer or influencer literally anywhere, at any time. It’s an intentional adventure.”

Every Conversation Can Become an Opportunity

Chernenko says one of the biggest lessons was learning how open and opportunity-driven the ecosystem is.

He recalls a moment when members of the SILTA entrepreneur group visited a small cafeteria in San Francisco.

“There was a man sitting nearby who did not look like a businessperson at all,” Chernenko says. “Our first instinct was to just continue our own discussion.”

Instead, Chernenko decided to open the conversation.

“It turned out he was a university professor responsible for industry collaboration — exactly the kind of person you want to know when you want to dive into a new ecosystem,” he says.

“I recommend keeping an open mind.”

In Silicon Valley, every interaction can become a game changer.

Openness Brought Unexpected Successes

He shares another example from Palo Alto where a willingness to embrace the unknown opened the door to unexpected success.

“We were having dinner, and I started talking with a man who had no background in healthcare or research,” Chernenko recalls. “But it turned out he was interested in investing in promising early-stage companies.”

Following their conversation, the man decided to invest in Cornea Sense and joined the company’s angel investor circle with a significant contribution.

At the same time, Chernenko emphasizes that founders must remain focused.

“There are a lot of talking heads,” he says. “People at Silicon Valley networking events are also open and curious, but if you are not interesting to them, they will politely thank you and move on. Time is money.”

Commercially Curious Silicon Valley

Chernenko describes Silicon Valley culture as highly improvisational and commercially curious place.

Relationships also become more personal.

He describes visiting and staying at the home of an ophthalmologist advisor in Los Angeles.

“We were able to discuss Cornea Sense 24/7 almost nonstop,” he says. “It was incredibly valuable.”

The advisor is now preparing to join the Cornea Sense board and introduced Chernenko to his own valuable professional contacts during the visit.

Chernenko adapts quickly, builds trust naturally and forms meaningful relationships with clear intent. He communicates directly, avoids unnecessary complexity and combines intelligence with unusual openness and ease.

That mindset has also shaped the way Cornea Sense approaches commercialization.

Act as a Company from Day One

Chernenko strongly recommends that university spin-offs begin acting like companies from day one.

“Research cannot wait until the science is fully finished before commercialization begins,” he says.

“We have met with investors from the very beginning. We wanted to test our product early. Feedback and validation have been extremely important fuel for us.”

At the same time, Cornea Sense has also systematically built relationships with all industry stakeholders. They have started building customer relationships through pilot planning and ecosystem-building efforts both in Europe and the United States.

Building Investor Confidence Early

Cornea Sense has already met personally with approximately 40–50 investors. The company expects to close its first funding round in May.

According to Chernenko, angel investors are helping secure enough runway to generate first pilot results within six months.

As the company moves forward, Cornea Sense is evaluating where its long-term market focus will ultimately be strongest — the United States or Europe.

Entrepreneurial Approach to the Valley of Death Problem

Finland supports world-class university research, but many medical and deep-tech spin-offs still struggle during the transition between public research funding and investor-ready commercialization.

Behind the excitement and opportunities, Chernenko knows that deep-tech entrepreneurship is shaped by a harsh reality: long timelines, regulatory hurdles and difficult funding transitions.

Chernenko has not only experienced the “Valley of Death” firsthand as a founder — he also researched the phenomenon in his MBA thesis.

For Cornea Sense, building relationships with respected ophthalmology experts has helped the company move beyond the “Valley of Death” familiar to many research spin-offs.

Chernenko’s strategy has been to build trust with specialists who believe that once (not if) completed, the product could become highly valuable.

“They want to help. They want to become part of our angel investor network,” he says.

Structural Funding Instrument Could Speed Up the Growth

In Finland, the primary national commercialization instrument for turning university research into startups and spin-offs is Business Finland’s Research to Business program.

“In the program, Business Finland typically funds 80 percent, while the university or research organization covers the remaining 20 percent,” Chernenko explains.

“The typical total budget is between €500,000 and €800,000 over one to two years. About 40 percent must be used for commercialization work, which is great.”

Still, Chernenko believes a major gap remains between early research funding and investor readiness.

Aalto University’s research-phase funding programs are strong, he says, and Finland also has good business grants for companies with more mature products and companies.

“But for early-stage deep-tech companies caught between those phases, there is still a dangerous gap where it is difficult to raise funding from open markets because there are no pilot results yet,” he says.

“It becomes a chicken-and-egg problem”

Research to Business funding is designed for early commercialization and proof-of-concept development — not for fully finished companies.

“There are funding instruments like Young Innovative Company funding,” he says. “But that is intended for scalable international companies that already have investors, full-time teams and proof of market.”

“The companies that are not there yet would benefit from funding that supports the phase where they are still building the investor base.”

Deep Tech Needs Longer Runways

According to Chernenko’s own research, the greatest barriers facing Finnish university spin-offs are often not technological, but structural. Commercialization timelines, leadership transitions and funding mechanisms remain poorly aligned with the realities of building deep-tech companies.

“To complete pilots, FDA preparation, clinical data collection and investor readiness, one year is a very short time,” he says “Med tech timelines are often much longer than existing funding structures anticipate.

“Translational milestones are expensive, especially in medtech, diagnostics and regulated industries.”

What is missing, he argues, is a true bridge instrument between public research commercialization grants and institutional equity investment — something that could support the mentioned pilot funding, regulatory preparation and commercialization continuity during the most fragile phase of company formation.

“Many projects die because the transition phase itself is underfunded”

Who could fund the research startups’ Death Valley face? “Perhaps an instrument where there is more private equity and smaller portion of funding from the government like Tesi, perhaps 2/3 : 1/3” Chernenko is thinking outloud.

“How can research startups survive the ‘Valley of Death’ phase?” Anton Chernenko wonders aloud, reflecting on the fragile stretch between breakthrough research and commercial reality.

“Perhaps the answer is a one year funding instrument built more heavily on private equity or research organization, with a smaller government contribution through organizations like Tesi — maybe a two-thirds to one-third structure.”

The success of companies like Cornea Sense may ultimately depend on how well Finland and Europe learn to speed up the long and expensive transition from scientific discovery to commercial scale.

Deep-tech innovation rarely fails because of weak science. More often, it struggles during the difficult years between research funding and market readiness.

Chernenko’s time with SILTA program in Silicon Valley and beyond reinforced how much commercialization also depends on openness, speed, relationships and the ability to move fluidly between ecosystems, conversations and opportunities.

Bridging that gap more successfully could determine how many future university spin-offs evolve from promising laboratory projects into globally significant companies and long-term economic growth along the way.

During his time in the SILTA program, Anton Chernenko has been actively chasing opportunities, partnerships, and conversations that could help propel Cornea Sense forward. “Along San Francisco’s trails, giant pinecones line the path, a fitting metaphor for the outsized opportunities of the region” he says.