By Natasha Eldridge, Director of RESI Conference Series, LSN
In the last 4 years, RESI has facilitated thousands of new connections between early stage companies and investors, and we often hear of successful partnerships and allocations that have begun at this hub of communication and dialogue. In this article, we’ll take a look at one example of a great RESI success.
An early stage therapeutics company was one of 30 companies selected to participate in a RESI Innovation Challenge, out of over 100 applicants. Prior to the event the company used the RESI Partnering software to book a meeting with an investor representing the corporate venture capital fund of a major pharma firm that was looking for assets in their field. Although the startup was a little too early in their development process to match the corporate VC’s criteria, the technology was a strong potential fit with the firm’s pipeline. The meeting went well, and the investor therefore connected the startup to the pharma company’s Business Development team. Two years later, with additional validation for the startup’s assets, they closed a significant collaboration deal with the pharma company. This is how it works in the early stage arena – by using venues like RESI to make your first early connections with major players, you can build bridges to future deals.
This startup was based in a city that’s not established as a major biotech startup hub. It’s an example of how LSN brings together buyers and sellers from all over North America, and indeed the world. Everybody is familiar with the obvious biotechnology centers like Boston and the Bay Area, but many players overlook less obvious sources of new technology. LSN not only marks these other hubs on our map, but we also develop relationships with startups in these areas via our outreach and our “Fundraising Bootcamp” educational workshops which help scientist entrepreneurs understand the details of partnering and fundraising. At the same time, the LSN Research team speaks to investment firms and large pharmaceutical companies worldwide about what kind of technology they need to see.
In this case, the LSN Research Team and Business Development Team were speaking with both the startup and the major pharma firm. Based on the relationships developed both decided to go to RESI and met through the partnering system which matched up their profiles as good fits to meet each other. That’s how we’ve seen RESI lead to so many deals over the last 4 years.
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