Tim Craggs is building technology that could change how we understand disease.

In this episode of The Digital Forge, David Richards MBE sits down with Tim Craggs, founder and CEO of Exciting Instruments, a University of Sheffield spin-out developing a new generation of tools for single-molecule research.

What once required vast, expensive machines in specialist labs can now sit on a benchtop. That shift matters. Tim explains how being able to observe single molecules in action opens the door to earlier disease detection, better drug discovery, and eventually new ways of tackling conditions like Parkinson’s.

But this is not just a story about science. It is a story about conviction and risk. Tim talks candidly about funding the business through customer sales before raising capital, scaling a deep-tech team at speed, and moving from academic research into global commercial markets in pharma and biotech.

We explore what it takes to build hard technology in the UK, why first-principles science still matters, and how Sheffield is quietly producing tools that could help reshape modern medicine.

This is a conversation about patience, precision, and building technology that may one day help cure diseases we still struggle to understand.