Campus entrepreneurship programs can lead to decades-long collaborations between academia and industry. Students may learn how to do their very first pitch deck. Or make a poster presentation. Or stand in front of a group of investors. And then go on to found a successful company (or two, or three) and create jobs for people in the area.
This was the case with Grapheno. Innovation Enterprise at Louisiana Tech University (LA Tech) has supported Konstantin Dolgan, PhD, and Onega Ulanova's entrepreneurial projects for more than a decade, since they were students. Grapheno, one of their three companies, celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2025. And, according to Kathy Wyatt, director of LA Tech’s Enterprise Development and Entrepreneurial Ventures (EDEV), “Over the next decade, Konstantin and Onega expect the business and opportunities to continue growing alongside this team’s vision and capabilities.”
Grapheno co-founders Konstantin Dolgan and Onega Ulanova
Dolgan and Ulanova formed Grapheno for LA Tech’s Top Dog student business plan competition. “They brought forward some technology that they thought offered a lot of promise,” said Wyatt, EDEV Director. Yet the company did not go forward with its idea. “It was a good technology, but it was not the thing that seemed to present the most promise to them at that time,” she said.
Around this time, Dolgan also started a student organization called the LA New Product Development Team. This student organization did prototyping for businesses across the nation. Dolgan and Ulanova enjoyed that so much that they chose to finish school with degrees and the company intact. They stayed in the area and remained in touch with Innovation Enterprise. “In that ten-year time period from when they graduated, we helped support them in any way we could,” said Wyatt.
Meanwhile, Innovation Enterprise was helping its tenant companies with defense industry contracting. The U.S. Air Force started emphasizing dual-use technology and commercialization. “That was a transformational point in the way that the Air Force commands were providing more access and more opportunity for the smaller companies we work with,” said Wyatt.
Dolgan and Ulanova looked back at a technology for strengthening materials that they had worked on as students at their student-run company, Grapheno. They hypothesized that the procedure could treat fatigue cracks, a problem for airplanes. They experimented and obtained promising preliminary results, so they considered—with Innovation Enterprise’s encouragement—submitting an SBIR grant application to fund a prototype and pilot project. At that point, they revived Grapheno, which had become defunct when they graduated, as a new company.
Dolgan had worked on the technology as a PhD student. “Cracks start to form, and that's how a part would end up failing,” he said. “Fatigue is such a huge problem. Over 50% of all mechanical failures are associated with fatigue, and 90% of all metallic failures are associated with fatigue.”
He noted that current options to treat fatigue offer only temporary solutions that weaken the structure. They also often require disassembling the airplane, which requires many workers and a lot of time. “It's a huge problem,” said Dolgan. “It keeps a lot of planes on the ground.”
The SBIR award from DoD was for $1.8 million. It was for a straight-to-Phase II project, since Dolgan had already completed the Phase I work as his PhD research project. With this contract, Grapheno developed a tool giving technicians an easier way to check for cracks. Their handheld tool eliminates the need for extensive airplane disassembly to fix cracks; its size allows it to examine small crevices within the airplane.
Grapheno expects to finish its Phase II project in September 2026. “Once we complete this stage,” said Dolgan, “we're going to be at about TRL (technology readiness level) six or seven. To get to TRL nine, we will need a few more years. And then, I'm going to expand.” Wyatt notes that Air Force confidence in their product can enhance market entry with commercial airlines. [NOTE: This SSTI TBED 101 article explains TRL levels in detail.]
Innovation Enterprise helped Grapheno by making sure they were aware of various resources in Louisiana. These resources included FAST grants, which enabled them to get Phase Zero funding. They used this funding to hire a grant reviewer to help with the SBIR application.
Grapheno’s project, says Wyatt, is a true academic-industry partnership. Their concept originated in student work and in their relationship with their professor. Wyatt noted that the professor’s depth of knowledge and ability to test and monitor results for third-party validation contributed to securing the contract.
Innovation Enterprise encouraged Dolgan to expand his contacts throughout Louisiana. At their suggestion, he participated in the State of Louisiana CEO Roundtable. “Through these meetings,” said Dolgan, “we learned from experts and from each other. We shared resources. It helped us learn about the programs Louisiana Economic Development (LED) offers, which we leveraged multiple times. And we learned about federal R&D tax credits.”
In 2024, Grapheno was selected as an inaugural tenant partner in Tech Pointe II. The facility is on the LA Tech Enterprise Campus, an emerging business district supported by LED.
The Innovation Enterprise-Grapheno partnership is typical of how Innovation Enterprise works with early-stage companies. Wyatt recently described the relationship, noting that “Those businesses that become a part of our Innovation Enterprise organization and our Enterprise Campus district are deliberately called partners, because it is not about real estate, it's about relationships and meaningful engagement with the university. … Our role is to help them gain understanding and knowledge that can help them grow stronger and faster.”
Grapheno is experiencing significant success. Their new contracts and product development activities in 2025 generated revenue growth more than 10 times that of the previous year. Their workforce consists of six full-time and one part-time employee, plus the two owners. Company employees’ earnings are over three times the Q2 2025 local average hourly wage of $22.25.
In 2025, Wyatt nominated Grapheno for an award; LED created a new Campus to Commerce award to better reflect the company's achievements. “Recognizing Grapheno with the Campus to Commerce award is as much about the company’s contributions to Louisiana’s innovation ecosystem as it is about the incredible research and products the company is delivering,” LED Chief Innovation Officer Josh Fleig said in a press release announcing the award. “Grapheno is a prime example of how combining university resources with an entrepreneurial drive can help advance the state’s legacy sectors and create next-generation opportunities. LA.IO (a division of LED) looks forward to continuing to work with Grapheno as they turn groundbreaking research into real-world solutions with meaningful impact.”
Commenting on her nomination, Wyatt said,
It's tough to be an innovator, even when you've got the very best technology, and you are, like Konstantin and Onega, smart and you're curious, and you're intelligent, and you're capable, and you're dedicated, and you have passion, and you have drive. It is hard to succeed at business, startup, and development. So, we wanted to encourage them and to confirm that we saw the same promise and hope in them while also committing to stand alongside them and support their business journey.