By Karen Deyo, Senior Investor Research Analyst, LSN

Digital RESI was an idea that arose under unusual circumstances, to say the least. As RESI drew near, we were overwhelmed with the positive responses we received to the change, and our attempt to move forward with an alternative to the traditional on-site conference. Now that the first Digital RESI is behind us, what do the numbers say?

With about 550 attendees, we saw over 1200 meetings taking place over the 3 days of partnering. Below you can find the breakdown of attendees and meetings. With 70% of the meetings taking place between companies and investors, this goes to show that investors are still hungry for good investments, despite the current environment. And while coordinating across time zones is extremely difficult, over 85% of the meetings took place as scheduled.

The proof is in the numbers – digital conferences are providing a way for startups and investors to meet and form relationships with a virtual one-on-one meeting. Make sure to check out the future digital events we will be holding to help make it through the coming months!

By Karen Deyo, Senior Investor Research Analyst, LSN

Thank you for participating in the first-ever Digital RESI. We want to make sure that this event is a success for you, and the following information will help you use the partnering platform to best advantage in this virtual conference.

First, please note that all currently scheduled meetings take place in Paris local time (CET). Please be aware that you can block off time slots so that you are not getting scheduled by the system at a time that is inconvenient due to your local time zone. The good news is, if you have accepted some meetings, you can reschedule your meetings to a more convenient time.

This is one of the challenges in going from a physical to a global digital format and LSN wants to make sure that all the meetings you book will work for both parties. Also, LSN does recommend making sure you have exchanged phone numbers with the other person, so that if something does happen you can just call the person directly.

Depending on your location, this would mean that the partnering slots take place at:

San Francisco (PST) 12AM-12PM
New York (EST) 3AM-3PM
Paris (CET) 8AM-8PM
Shanghai 3PM-3AM

Digital RESI is giving us an opportunity to continue with LSN’s mission to connect early stage companies with investors and strategic partners who are a fit for them, and we urge all of you to take full advantage of the partnering platform by accepting meetings over the three days of partnering. Virtual partnering meetings will start in 5 short days – make sure to fill your schedule!

By Bryanna Allison, Business Development Manager, LSN

In anticipation of RESI’s Virtual Partnering platform going live next week, many have asked us how the system will work. The core of RESI Partnering remains unchanged, and we now have the added functionality of a virtual meeting platform. The following video demonstration shows how to navigate the new features while still taking advantage of everything that makes RESI Partnering special. Make sure to check out the video, so you are ready for 3 days of partnering!

– An interview with Big4Bio & Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO of Life Science Nation and Creator of the RESI Conference Series

Big4Bio: Please tell Big4Bio how you decided to make RESI Digital? 

Dennis Ford (DF): “The show must go on!” has been the mantra at LSN since the COVID-19 troubles literally changed the daily landscape of the entire planet. LSN really didn’t have much of a choice when deciding to take the physical RESI Europe Paris conference and making it DIGITAL. We specialize in getting early satge life science products funded so that they can be developed and make it to market.  The “bench to bedside” journey is under a vast transition and LSN hopes we can do our best to help move the needle in life science.

Big4Bio: What was the biggest surprise so far in going Physical to Digital? 

DF: The shock came when we announced that decision to go virtual with Digital RESI Europe on Friday, March 6^th, and within 24 hours we had an additional 100 global investors and strategic partners sign up in support our now Digital Global event. We will have 3x the amount of attendees we were originally projecting.  Digital RESI is a “first-of-its-kind live experiment,” and LSN will soon see if we  can keep the early stage partnering business active by creating some virtual momentum.  LSN needs all the help we can get to see if we can make this event happen.  It is looking great thus far!

Big4Bio: How do the metrics look? 

DF: The metric that has surprised us at LSN is that we will have over 300 investors accepting partnering meetings, judging pitch presentation and participating on panels. We will have 3X the attendees if we were doing a physical RESI Europe Paris.  Every day the numbers keep on going up: this morning, Israel surfaced with multiple registrations with more to come.

Big4Bio: LSN is a small company with around a dozen staff…how are they doing with the transition? 

DF: The feeling among LSN’s amazing staff was that we must adapt and continue to try and move the needle in life science by helping get new technology funded.  The life science industry is unique in that the business models employed today are virtual in nature with small startup teams using global service providers to develop products. Global conferences are a huge part of this virtual ecosystem.  Digital RESI could not come to fruition without LSN staff deciding to go for it and executing on a bunch of levels. LSN has a diverse and dynamic staff, multitalented, multilingual and each person comes with a unique set of skills. Suffice to say, we are small but mighty and LSN has incredible global reach because the LSN staff has developed such long-lasting global relationships over the years.

Big4Bio: Can the life science Execs who attend Physical RESI adapt to a digital model? 

DF: The bigger question is, can the industry adapt and use a virtual conference and partnering platform. LSN has access to all the technology needed to simulate a physical conference with a digital conference, as everyone will see next week. Today everybody is in the same boat. Most of the life science players are home and working remotely so we will see if a digital conference implementation can be helpful.  It is our first one and we cobbled it together in ten days. LSN thinks it will be functional enough, and we will be on the look out to see what worked, what didn’t and what we can improve.

Big4Bio: Is Digital RESI staying cross border and cross domain? 

DF: LSN’s Digital RESI conference is cross-domain and is relevant to early-stage buyers and sellers across the silos of Drugs, Devices, Diagnostics and Digital Health, the “4 Ds”. RESI caters to both the earliest stage startups, those seeking grants, seed and angel capital, and the early-stage firms who seek series A and B funding.   Digital RESI will have a global investor presence, and scientist-entrepreneurs and fundraising CEOS form North America, Europe and Asia.

Big4Bio: Can Digital RESI bring the same level of investors and strategic partners? 

DF: Digital RESI will have a lot of the key VC and Big Pharma investors who are seeking new, early stage therapeutics that are big dollar long term bets. The BIG uptick is in the other categories of investors that are signed up, family offices, angels, corporate VC, endowments, foundations, patient groups and private wealth all looking at devices, diagnostics and digital health. The Digital RESI event is a wonderful opportunity for startups from seed-Series B to take advantage of 3 days of partnering to meet with these global investors.

By Karen Deyo, Senior Investor Research Analyst, LSN

The team at LSN are being consistently blown away by the eager response to bringing RESI and our partnering platform to a virtual system. Investors and companies are taking advantage of the multi-day virtual partnering experience, with 100s of meetings being booked a day over the past few days. Over the past year, I have managed the back-end of RESI partnering, and I am amazed to see the activity on the platform. We anticipate over 800 meetings will take place over the three days of partnering, and that the number of meetings booked will be more than double what we would have seen at a physical RESI conference with the same number of attendees.

The benefit of the digital partnering platform is that it is built on our existing partnering system, allowing companies to easily identify investors and strategic partners who are a fit for them. Attendees can now request, book and participate in meetings from one place. The virtual partnering allows attendees to participate in meetings with multiple colleagues and features a screensharing function as well. Basically, this system combines the features of the video conferencing platforms that we use on a daily basis, without requiring attendees to do more than schedule their meeting as they normally would at RESI.

Carrying on business as usual has been impossible, and the whole world has had to adapt to a new reality over the past few months. The transition from in-person meetings to virtual, while not ideal, is allowing startups to continue their mission of bringing new technologies to the clinic. More than ever, current events are proving how necessary it is to keep moving forward, and as many startups will be facing a difficult time ahead in moving their technologies towards the market, we are appreciative of the support of the investors in LSN’s global ecosystem in adopting this digital format. There is still room for plenty more meetings – it’s not too late to register!

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

As many of our readers know, our upcoming RESI Europe event, which would have taken place in Paris on Monday, March 23^rd, has now shifted gears towards a virtual 3-day conference due to the growing COVID-19 outbreak. Our inaugural virtual conference will be held entirely in digital format from March 23^rd through March 25^th, and will feature 12 hours of partnering per day, with full video integration, from 8am to 8pm CET to allow for flexible scheduling among different time zones.

We are excited about this new development, and we are delighted to announce that in the last 24 hours, over 100 investors have confirmed to participate in our digital RESI event for a total of over 250 investors. As we have just started announcing our new conference format, we expect these numbers to grow rapidly until the first day of RESI.

COVID-19 has been posing challenges for everyone across the globe, and we truly appreciate the positive feedback and support we’ve been receiving from our investor network. We look forward to meeting you all “digitally”. Check out the participating investors below!

 

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

The program guide and the “live” agenda will navigate you to the right RESI event and meeting.

A typical RESI conference attendee in the physical world receives the program guide and uses the agenda to plan out their day. So, the first hurdle for the digital event is how to navigate through a virtual conference? LSN is taking the “agenda page” of the Digital RESI Europe program guide and making it an interactive navigation vehicle for the three-day virtual event. All attendees will have 24/7 access to the RESI investor and workshop panels, Innovation Challenge finalist presentations, Featured Company Pitches, Exhibitor portal and, most importantly, an enhanced and expanded Partnering Platform.

The Digital RESI Europe Agenda. https://www.resiconference.com/resiagenda/

LSN is going to embed links throughout the agenda that will allow RESI Europe attendees to easily navigate through all the aspects of the virtual conference. This means more opportunity to get at the amazing content presented by the who’s who of early stage global partnering. Click on the panel or workshop you wish to attend, and you will be connected to a prerecorded panel video. Click on the Partnering Platform of the agenda and be linked to a new enhanced partnering software powered by Meeting Mojo for your live video conference with screen sharing functionality. As compared to the standard 1-day physical conference, Digital RESI Europe Partnering has now been expanded to 12 hours per day over 3 days for you to maximize your number of meetings. Click on the company presentation you want to see/hear, and the prerecorded video will surface for your viewing pleasure. Click on the Exhibition Portal and see the 30 top ranked Innovation Challenge companies and meet all of our featured exhibitors and tech hubs.

LSN is fortunate in that for Digital RESI Europe to succeed, LSN must stick to our core value, which is matching early stage companies with early stage partners and facilitating 1:1 partnering meetings. If we get that bit right, we will have preserved our value. LSN is confident that the virtual meeting scenario will be a success and may be a new way to connect buyers and sellers!

1:1 Partnering Meetings

Digital RESI Europe is a dedicated global partnering event. RESI has the most powerful partnering platform because we can match companies and partners based on stage of development and product fit. The core value is our 1:1 partnering, that RESI has used since 2013. The partnering software is owned and operated by our partner Meeting Mojo, which is implementing a video meeting component embedded in the application. Any RESI attendee can use this video capability to “attend” their scheduled meeting. The challenge for all the attendees will be the geographic time zone issues and that may require some flexibility. Fortunately, being virtual and being able to extend the conference from a one day physical to a three-day virtual conference means more availability to find mutual time slots that will work for both parties.

Investor and Workshop Panels

RESI is unique in that we dedicate most of our panels to the ten categories of investors and partners who play in the early-stage space, cross-border and across the silos of drugs, devices, diagnostics and digital health. What attendees learn from these panels is who the right players are, the best way to reach out, how they source technology (including RESI), how they vet companies and how they help early stage companies with whom they have relationships develop. The information that entrepreneurs receive from these panels is invaluable in helping them understand the nuances of how all the different players in the space approach early stage startups.

 

Featured Company Pitch Session Presenting Companies

Early stage life science companies that are actively raising seed capital ($25k to 2 MM), Series A ($2 MM to 10 MM) or Series B ($10 MM to 50 MM) use RESI to get in front of a panel of qualified investors in their market segment and pitch their company and product. The investors ask questions, provide feedback and commentary on the pitch, company and product. These presentations are invaluable in the journey to raising capital. Digital RESI Europe will feature presenting companies prominently on the conference website, and program guide and will post a prerecorded version of their pitch. Investors and industry experts will be encouraged to submit written questions to the pitching companies.

LSN Created a Virtual Exhibitor Hall

The Exhibition Portal will feature all our Digital RESI Europe exhibitors and our Innovation Challenge finalists.

Innovation Challenge

RESI is world renowned for its Innovation Challenge where, at every RESI conference, we feature select companies that have been scored and ranked with the LSN expert system for “investability.” We take the top 30 firms who apply and feature them with an easel in the exhibition hall. LSN has created a virtual exhibition hall where partners can see their poster board and also hear them give a prerecorded 3-5-minute pitch on their technology. The Innovation Challenge participants are virtually voted on with “RESI cash” and the winners will be awarded prizes and get featured in the LSN weekly newsletter.

Virtual Exhibitor Hall

The RESI exhibitors and sponsors will be featured on a dedicated page with a virtual exhibitor booth, showcasing their services and the value they can provide. Participating tech hubs can highlight their programs and constituent companies.