Founder Profile: Caralynn Nowinski Collens, M.D. | Dimension Inx
Today we chat with Caralynn Nowinski Collens, co-founder and CEO of Dimension Inx. She shares more about the company she’s leading, as well as her advice to other founders on their startup journey. This story has been lightly edited for clarity.
Who: Caralynn Nowinski Collens, M.D.
Location: Chicago, IL
Company: Dimension Inx
Stage: Series A
One-liner: Dimension Inx is a biomaterials platform that designs and develops therapeutic products that restore tissue and organ function.
Introduce yourself!
I am proud to be co-founder and CEO of Dimension Inx, a biomaterials platform company developing regenerative therapeutics that direct cells to rebuild healthy tissues. I am driven to build teams and organizations that harness technology to drive transformational change and improve the quality of people’s lives.
I also serve as an Independent Director of Fathom Digital Manufacturing [NYSE:FATH] and as Board Chair of Imerman Angels, a cancer support community that offers one-on-one support for cancer fighters. These roles help me be a better CEO at Dimension, allowing me to bring in learnings from other leaders and organizations.
On a personal note, I love spending time with my 5-year-old son Asher and my husband Steven, as well as our extended family. Our happy place is anywhere in the mountains — hiking, skiing, climbing, and camping. It’s very hard for me to sit still.
Why did you start your company?
I spent eight years prior to Dimension as the CEO and one of the founders of UI LABS, a first-of-its-kind innovation collaborative that launched MxD, the national digital manufacturing institute. I was fortunate to have a front row seat to the future of manufacturing, working with some of the world’s leading companies and universities. When I left to decide what’s next, I knew that I wanted to take my newfound passion for advanced manufacturing and pair it with my roots in medicine.
As a former life sciences VC and physician, I was struck by how biology and engineering were colliding, offering new ways to help patients. I now live this every day. The opportunities resulting from this convergence continue to expand, and what we’re doing at Dimension is a perfect example.
We use our biomaterials platform to engineer three-dimensional microenvironments to direct cell and tissue behavior. This is only possible because of advances in advanced materials and additive manufacturing and an increased understanding of cell biology. We can now enable a whole new generation of regenerative tissue therapeutics.
What’s your biggest piece of advice for other founders?
As founders, our job is more than running the company — it’s about leading the company. It’s about building the right team, who can work with you to craft the right strategy to deliver value. Our job is to define the north star and to inspire our teams to reach it. It doesn’t mean that we need to have all of the answers, but it does mean that we need to know what questions to ask and to put the right people around us to get to better answers.
This may seem trite, but it’s amazing at times how easy it can be for founders to get stuck in the tyranny of the urgent, or to spend too much time in the weeds when we need to elevate our thinking and actions. This takes intentionality to see across the organization — and even across the industry — to see things that others may not, to connect dots and see patterns, and ultimately to inspire others to see them too.
