Archive | Redefining Every Stage Investments (RESI) RSS feed for this section

The Lost Art of Following Up

14 Jan

By Dennis Ford, Founder and CEO of Life Science Nation, Creator of the RESI Conference Series

Following up with a previous correspondence is an inevitability in the digital age, so when did entrepreneurs start taking a lack of response as the recipient’s lack of interest in their message? While this may be true in some instances, it is not always the case. A timely, thoughtful follow-up strategy is one of the best communication tools any fundraising executive may possess, and it often makes the difference between a meeting and another introduction gone unanswered. Such a powerful skillset deserves its own process, so we’ve broken it down:

  1. Introduction: The first message is the one where you introduce yourself and your company, as well as request a meeting. It’s ok if your target investor does not respond immediately (hence this system). To help them understand your position, it’s important to include the following:
      1. Company tagline (5-6 words explaining who you are and what you do)
      2. Elevator pitch (1-3 sentences describing the company and tech)
      3. Technology differentiation, product innovation, or market position
      4. Raise and milestone information
  2. Follow Up 1 (Product/Tech): Why is your product and technology unique? Is it first-in-class? Best-in-class? This is your opportunity to dive into your company’s differentiated value.
  3. Follow Up 2 (Management/Team): Highlight your management and team. How have your people had a notable impact on the business development. What makes your people special?
  4. Follow Up 3 (One Pager): Condense all the important messages you’ve already shared into a one-page tear sheet for quick and easy reference later. Even if the investor you’ve targeted is not a fit, this will make it easier for them to share your company with another.

(Tear Sheet Sample)

Life Science Nation (LSN) has helped hundreds of early-stage startups within life science and healthcare get their branding and messaging straight in order to connect with investors who are a fit for their product and stage of development. We’ve seen great companies neglect the finer details, like a comprehensive follow-up strategy, and hope this helps you along your journey to funding and beyond!

Introducing the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge Finalists!

7 Jan

By Claire Jeong, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President of Investor Research, Asia BD, LSN

claireLife Science Nation (LSN)’s Inaugural Healthtech Partnering Week launches next week, which means the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC) is on! The IPC is an opportunity for early-stage, fundraising CEOs to pitch directly to a panel of judges, who follow up with a live Q&A session.

How does it work? The finalist companies deliver pitching materials, including a comprehensive slide deck, executive summary, and a long form pitch video to be hosted on a dedicated webpage the judges review prior to their live session. Sessions are split up by sectors and are designed to match up companies with investors actively seeking opportunities in their space. During the live session, companies deliver a brief short form pitch, which is then followed by a Q&A period with the judges.

Each event sees an incredible line up of early-stage companies delivering promising tech to advance life science and healthcare. LSN is proud to host this powerful meeting of the minds.

Innovator’s Pitch Challenge Finalists

J.P. Morgan Week Update: The Perfect Venue to Launch LSN Healthtech Partnering Week

7 Jan

By Dennis Ford, Founder and CEO of Life Science Nation, Creator of the RESI Conference Series

It’s that time of year again! J.P. Morgan’s Annual Healthcare Conference has spawned countless concurrent healthcare conferences taking advantage of the influx of industry professionals eager to network and make deals for nearly forty years. The Redefining Early-Stage Investments (RESI) conference series has been a popular addition for several years, and it seemed the obvious choice when we looked to launch our own Healthtech Partnering Week.

Over the past ten months, as many industries slowed down, Life Science Nation (LSN)’s partnering events have ramped up, delivering an increased number of one-on-one meetings between fundraising early-stage companies and investors. The metrics speak for themselves, as we’ve seen an average of 1400+ meetings take place over three days of digital partnering, proving that digital partnering works with investors pulling the deal-making trigger. The proof-of-concept, preclinical and clinical trial money is flowing.

Learn more about Healthtech Partnering Week and join the 500+ investors.

What’s the difference?

MATCHING LSN’s customized partnering system enables fundraising CEOs, investors, and strategic partners to seek opportunities based on several search criteria, most importantly including product fit and stage of development, helping attendees avoid wasted meetings, which can amount to more than half the meetings booked at standard partnering conferences. LSN’s database of thousands of investors and start-ups provides detailed profiles that help attendees increase their chances of success by matching with the best partners for them.

MESSAGING LSN has interviewed thousands of investors in order to learn what their criteria are for taking a meeting and engaging with an investment prospect. The trends we found have been written into a book (FREE PDF COPY) designed to help the scientist-entrepreneur understand how to get their branding and messaging straight. This starts with a cogent 5–7-word tagline, a lucid 6-7-sentence elevator pitch, and a one-page data sheet that succinctly presents all relevant information a potential investor would need at first glance. Finally, tell your unique story through a two-page executive summary and elaborate on your technology in a 10–12-page pitch deck.

FOLLOW-UP Partnering is an extremely competitive contact sport. You need to get your company and message above the noise. Investors and strategic partners are inundated with meeting requests, and if you do not have a compelling tactical plan to go after and secure meetings, you run the risk of getting only 4-6 meetings, instead of 15-20+. It’s a numbers game – we don’t make the rules, but we know how to play by them.

LSN has developed a 4-step follow-up process. The concept of follow-up stops most early-stage entrepreneurs in their tracks and thus limits their interaction with targeted partners. We walk a fundraising CEO through all these issues and set them on the right path through our content, bootcamps and seminars. Preparing CEOs for partnering success is rarely given enough attention, and LSN is passionate about using its insight to help deal-flow to promising teams and their tech.

Check out more tips on partnering and a tutorial of the LSN system. There’s still time to register for events at Healthtech Partnering Week. Don’t miss out!

Partnering in the Age of AgeTech: What the Longevity Market is Missing

7 Jan

By Rory McCann, Marketing Manager & Conference Producer, LSN

The Inaugural Longevity, Health & Innovation digital partnering event launches next week! This conference, co-organized by Life Science Nation (LSN) and Mary Furlong & Associates (MFA), is designed to bring early-stage companies and investors together, along with industry leaders, to advance deals in the longevity marketplace in order that seniors live longer, healthier lives.

I spoke with LSN CEO, Dennis Ford and MFA CEO, Dr. Mary Furlong on their partnership and thoughts on the industry, particularly where Longevity, Health & Innovation fills the gap in the early-stage ecosystem. There is still time to sign up and begin meeting with leaders in the field – Learn more at https://longevityhealthinnovation.com/.

Make a Match that Matters

17 Dec

By Claire Jeong, Vice President of Investor Research, Asia BD, LSN

claireYou’ve likely heard it said that fundraising is a numbers game – this is true, but only half of the equation. It doesn’t matter how many investors you meet with if they are not a fit for your product and stage of development. In fact, the argument can be made that, although networking is inherently valuable, you waste time by not seeking out the right investors for you.

At Life Science Nation (LSN), the mission is to connect companies with capital, and that happens through many ways, but most importantly, through addressing the bottleneck of connecting fundraising founders with investors who are a fit. One of the most direct and powerful methods LSN delivers this is through the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge (IPC).

The IPC puts fundraising founders in front of relevant investors seeking assets in their stage and sector directly through a live pitch session with Q&A, as well as indirectly via a dedicated webpage hosting a long-format pitch video, as well as executive summary, pitch deck, and any supporting materials. Attendees have the opportunity to vote for best pitch, awarding the top three companies with free tickets to future RESI conferences to support their fundraising efforts.

December 18 is the deadline to apply for the Innovator’s Pitch Challenge at 3-Day Digital Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI), taking place, January 11-13, 2021 as a part of LSN’s Healthtech Partnering Week, January 11-15, 2021. Applications are free, however, applicants are required to register for the conference, as well as pay an additional $500 pitching fee. Early bird pricing ends this week, so get your application in by December 18 and save!

Example of a Company’s Landing Page

See What Investors Are Saying about The Innovator’s Pitch Challenge

“It was a very economical use of time; the investors got to ask their important questions and the Innovators got a good idea of the most pressing questions from the investors point of view.”
William Kuziel, MedPro Investors
“The Pitch Sessions are a great opportunity to connect with startup CEOs and learn more about their work…It really has been an effective and efficient way to make connections, create deal flow and help startups raise money for their upcoming raises.”
Mayank Taneja, OSF Healthcare
“I look forward to LSN’s events because they provide an opportunity for our venture capital firm to find promising companies with exceptional technologies. The organization and technology platform make it very easy to hear numerous pitches from founders.”
Nat Brinn, VC23
“The Pitch Sessions were a great opportunity to engage with the CEO/Founders of very innovative Life Science startups. Despite the COVID-related transition from in-person to virtual meetings, the RESI team did an outstanding job organizing these sessions, ensuring that the live Q&A was very productive, and facilitating follow-up with these exciting companies.”
Gary Gershony, Life Science Angels / BayMed Venture Partners

Successful Partnering: It Depends on You, but You’re Not in it Alone

17 Dec

By Gregory Mannix, Chief Conference Officer, Vice President International Business Development, LSN

Life Science Nation (LSN)’s Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) conference series enables fundraising executives to network and make connections with key industry players. Because of its unique focus and format, RESI presents valuable opportunities for early-stage companies to meet and partner with investors and strategic partners. However, even with the best systems, partnering can be challenging and competitive.

The conference format has changed radically this year. RESI has evolved from a 1-day, in-person conference to a 3-day digital conference with non-stop partnering serving a global community. Additionally, LSN has added new conferences taking place within Healthtech Partnering Week: 4D Meets AI and Longevity, Health & Innovation, providing five full days of partnering.

LSN partnering events are designed to match fundraising executives with investors who are a fit for their product and stage of development, however, while some companies are consistently successful at getting many good investor meetings at each and every RESI conference they attend, while others struggle to get any meetings at all.

So what is the key to success?

Clearly, your degree of success is directly proportionate to the effort you put into it. There are 4 key elements to successful partnering:

  1. Create a compelling and complete profile for your company and yourself on the Partnering Platform
  2. Spend time on developing an outbound meeting request message
  3. Request as many meetings as possible
  4. Follow up frequently

Yes, this is a big task and a lot of work over the weeks leading up to a conference, but the effort you put into partnering will determine the outcome. Let’s have a look at each key element of your partnering strategy.

PROFILE

  1. Start with brief overview, similar to your “elevator pitch”, that simply introduces your company and describes what you do and what makes you special.
  2. Complete all of the sections in the profile with concise information that investors can easily navigate. The sections to complete are:
    • Technology Overview
    • Alliances and Collaborations
    • Supporting Metrics or Evidence
    • Current Financing Needs
    • Current Investors
    • Current Timeline
    • IP Status
    • Management Team Highlights
    • Recent milestones
    • Personal profiles of attendees at RESI
    • Upload your logo, your website and any supporting materials for investors to review, like an investor deck and executive summary

OUTBOUND MEETING REQUEST MESSAGE

Make your message compelling, as this is what the investor is going to see before deciding whether to look at your profile in more depth. Include the key points, without making it so long that you lose the interest of the reader. The key elements should include the following:

  1. Introduce yourself, your title, and the name of your company. Although obvious, you might be surprised by how many people don’t do this.
  2. 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. 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, digital health, etc.)
    • The indication you are treating or problem you are trying to solve
    • Your product’s stage of development
  1. 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 grab the investor’s interest.
  2. Stage of your fundraising 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Request the meeting.

REQUEST MANY MEETINGS

Keep in mind that investors are juggling their own agendas and are in high demand. Use the RESI Partnering Platform to determine which investors are a fit for you, and request meetings with all of those that you target. Our data show that the fundraising companies that get the most meetings sent out upwards of 50 invitations.

FOLLOW UP FREQUENTLY

A common pitfall in partnering is to not follow up sufficiently until you achieve your goal: to get that investor meeting. It is usually not sufficient to send a meeting request out and just wait for the answers to come rolling in.

The best strategy is to begin your outreach as soon as the Partnering Platform opens. This will give you time to follow up sufficiently with investors you want to meet with. After sending out all of your initial meeting requests, wait for about a week. At that point, send a message through the Partnering Platform using the “SEND A MESSAGE” option to all those who have not answered you after a week,  and change your messaging a bit, perhaps focusing each of your follow-up messages on a different area of your company (technology, market and unmet need, management or advisory team, etc.). Be organized and persistent. Use the platform messaging option, email (if you have Premier Partnering), LinkedIn, telephone… whatever it takes to get a response back.

If you follow these steps, you will see the results and have a better partnering experience.

HAPPY PARTNERING!

Angels and Family Offices Funding Diseases that Impact Longevity: A Perfect Fit

17 Dec

By Dennis Ford, Founder and CEO of Life Science Nation, Creator of the RESI Conference Series

The What’s Next Longevity Innovation Summit, organized by Mary Furlong & Associates took place December 3-4, 2020, and hosted a panel highlighting how angel groups and family offices impact innovation within diseases affecting longevity. The panel revolved around how early-stage technology firms are developing and funding products aimed at well-known diseases that disproportionately affect aging Baby Boomers. These conditions range from arthritis, hearing and vision impairment, diabetes, cancer, mental health conditions, chronic respiratory diseases (CRDs), and central nervous system (CNS) diseases.

Angels and family offices want to participate in this market and provide alternative sources of early-stage capital to help launch these new technologies that will help find treatments for these ailments. There is a bevy of new age-tech products and services impacting the market and changing the landscape of aging. These two early-stage investor types are distinct from each other in many ways, but also work well together.

Learn how these investor types operate from prominent early-stage angels and family offices, as they discuss how private capital pools are working together to fund technology and products impacting longevity through healthcare innovation.

Want to join the conversation? Life Science Nation and Mary Furlong & Associates have teamed up to bring investors and early-stage companies working in the longevity market together for a virtual partnering event, January 14-15, 2021. There’s still time to sign up for Longevity, Health & Innovation and start meeting fundraising goals for the new year!

← Older Entries
Newer Entries →