By Alejandro Zamorano, VP of Business Development, LSN
Life Science Nation attends many partnering conferences, in addition to hosting our own quarterly Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) Conference series. After taking the time to study the most successful partnering requests and interviewing investors about what they look for in an introductory note, we have created a template email, which should increase your response rate when soliciting investment:
Frank,
My name is John Doe, CEO, Sample Therapeutics, an early stage therapeutic company based out of New York developing an antibody drug conjugate (ADC) for pancreatic cancer. Our lead asset (OK-101) is in the middle of Phase 1 clinical trials and is open to partnership opportunities.
OK-101 leverages Sample Therapeutics’ proprietary ADC technology to deliver doxorubicin to cancer tissue more efficiently, thereby reducing toxicity and increasing its efficacy. Unlike traditional ADCs, Sample Therapeutics’ platform uses a two-part ADC system in which antigen-specific antibodies are injected into the body first, followed by the small molecule that then binds to the antibodies in the cancer tissue. This system increases the versatility of known ADC technology and avoids the common liver toxicity problems found in traditional systems.
Currently we are at the beginning stages of our fundraising campaign to complete our Phase 2 by Q4 2016. Given your firm’s experience in clinical stage oncology assets, and what I read in your profile our company seems to match your investment interests.
I think we are a good fit for your investment strategy and would like to have an opportunity to connect with you at the RESI Conference.
Let’s break down the email in order to understand its structure.
1st — Introduce Yourself
Introduce yourself, your title, and the name of your company. Although obvious, you might be surprised by how many people don’t do this.
2nd — Introduce Your Company
Give a brief overview of your company so that an investor can determine from the first sentence whether you are a fit for their investment mandate. Remember, every investor is unique and therefore not every investor is a fit for your opportunity. Here are five key data points that are likely to affect investor fit:
- Where your company is based
- What sector your company is in (biotech, medtech, diagnostics, healthcare IT, etc)
- The modality you are using
- The indication you are treating or problem you are trying to solve
- Your product’s development phase
3rd — Key Value Proposition/Elevator Pitch
Use the next part of the email to describe the key value proposition of your technology. This should include a high-level description of the core technology and its major differentiators from currently available products or solutions. This is the core of your messaging and should reveal enough information to pique interest.
4th — The Stage of Your Fundraising Campaign
You should clearly state where you are in the fundraising process (beginning, middle or end) and what the use of those proceeds will be. This way an investor can gauge if your round is a fit for their capital allocation.
5th — Reaffirm
You should do your homework on every investor you reach out to and reference a relevant data point to reaffirm the reason you are reaching out.
6th — The Next Step
Finish the email by laying out when you plan on connecting with them and how the both of you should connect. As this is a conference partnering message, this can be as simple as telling them to accept the meeting request if they would like to meet up.
By sticking to these fundamentals you will make it a lot easier for an investor to identify you as a fit for their investment strategy. This will lead to higher response rates and more productive meetings.
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