Accelerate scientific discovery by improving research communication

Interview with Rowan Cockett

Our Story

Our CEO, Rowan Cockett, had sold his visualization startup and received the top-research prize in Canada for his PhD. He was experimenting with different ways to share research and science, and at the same time publishing in traditional scientific journals. He experienced the massive gulf between how we work on research and how science is shared professionally — locked away in static PDFs without the instructions to reproduce the work. Even within his own lab group, reproducing ideas took years of time — science deserves better infrastructure to accelerate discovery.

Steve Purves, our CTO, is an entrepreneur and technologist with a deep background in machine learning and data science. Together they started Curvenote in 2019 to bring scientific publishing into the age of the internet — to accelerate scientific discovery by radically improving the ways we communicate research.

Today our global team is backed by YCombinator and partners with leading societies and institutions who recognize the urgent need to improve the way science is communicated. By sharing more of our science, software and data we collectively empower the ethos of standing on the shoulders of giants.

Our Values

Be bold & empathetic

To achieve big changes in scientific publishing means being bold. Taking risks, reaching further, pushing limits and beliefs. We learn from our mistakes–failing forward. We also know change is a journey and we must meet people where they are. We dare to be an adventurous thinker, which means zooming out to stay on mission.

Be open & accessible

Science needs to be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable. Staying open to new ideas, ways of thinking and approaches, is at our core. We embrace the work necessary to help make science accessible regardless of background, identity and experience. We believe this helps build effective open communities, open-source software, and open standards.

Empower & collaborate

Science is a team sport. We put collaboration and community empowerment at the heart of everything we do. We nurture thriving scientific communities that are supportive, collaborative and aim to elevate both the collective and the individual to be more than the sum of their parts.

A community of researchers

Meet Our Leadership Team

Rowan Cockett
Rowan Cockett, PhD
Cofounder & CEO

A technology entrepreneur with a background in computational geophysics and a drive to make technical content engaging through interactivity.

Steve Purves
Steve Purves
Cofounder & CTO

An experienced technology leader, building software teams and products in diverse industries of finance, electronic manufacturing, geoscience, and healthcare.

Franklin Koch, MSc
Lead Software Developer

A background in geophysics and interactive computing with a passion for improving scientific communication.

Mike Morrison, PhD
Lead UX Researcher

Mike's goal in life is to make science easier for scientists to do. He started the #betterposter movement, and has backgrounds in both web development and research psychology.

Science deserves better than a PDF

Write, share and communicate interactive scientific content