By Tom Crosby, RESI Conference Manager, LSN

Angels represent an extremely important pool of capital for a fundraising entrepreneur, especially now that they have begun syndicating and participating in larger financing rounds. To help RESI attendees better understand how to receive an allocation from an angel, LSN has assembled a world-class panel of accredited investors to sit on the September 17 Angel Group session.

Moderated by Barbara Nelsen, an active solo angel and member of Sofia Angel Fund (which invests in companies operated by or for women), the audience will hear from:

•                 Bill Whitaker, Managing Director, Golden Seeds
•                 Stephen Nagler, Executive Director, MedPro Investors LLC
•                 Stephen Goodman, Co-Founder, Mid-Atlantic Bio Angels
•                 Praveen Tailam, Managing Director, TiE Angels

This session will help scientist entrepreneurs understand the perspective of the angel. Angels will explain their investment preferences, and those of their respective syndicates (when angels band together). What sectors are most attractive to angels? How does an angel group filter, evaluate and parse the plethora of deals that surface?

Other topics of discussion will include their criteria for management team, stage of technology, and whether there is a preference for regional or global firms. What is the difference in presenting to an angel group versus a traditional one-on-one investor meeting — and how does the vetting process work? If you’re looking for angel capital to move your technology forward, don’t miss this session of expert insight at RESI.

By Michael Quigley, Director of Research, LSN

June was a fruitful month for LSN’s Research Team, yielding 56 new investment mandates from various life science investors around the globe. In order to grant our readership a better insight into the life science investment trends we are seeing real time, the LSN Research Team highlighted some interesting data points from the mandates we received throughout the month of June.

Diversification of Investor Types

The month produced mandates from a diverse pool of investor types spread across the 9 categories seen below.

This chart represents the diversity of investors that LSN communicates with on a monthly basis. We frequently stress the importance of reaching out to different categories of investors that are a fit for your firm to produce greater odds of creating a dialogue, and this chart demonstrates why.

Growing Interest in Investing Globally

Another point we have discussed is the growing interest investors have in seeing deal flow on a global level and the mandates we have received last month further validate that claim.

As you can see, a large number of investors are looking globally, stating specifically that they are interested in reviewing and allocating to opportunities from around the world. Reaching out locally is a great way to start your campaign; however, limiting your entire campaign to investors based on geographic distance can be detrimental to success.

Medical Technology Edges out Therapeutics and Diagnostics

Sectors of Interest in mandates from the month of June also yielded what may be considered contrarian results by many in the industry.

Medical Technology actually demonstrated the strongest level of interest based on investors that we spoke to in the month of June. We have noticed however that these investors tend to have more interest in companies further along in product development as addressed by my colleague, Lucy Parkinson, in the following article.

As LSN Research continues to uncover and interview more life science investors certain trends increasingly stand out. The two largest, and arguably most important to a fundraising entrepreneur are the growing diversification of investor types with interest in the space and the increasing number of global investment mandates that these groups have.  We look forward to keeping our readership abreast to all we uncover while speaking with these groups, and plan on having more periodic reviews of our recently obtained mandates.

By Lucy Parkinson, Research Manager, LSN

As highlighted in our look at the Medtech Fundraising Landscape for 2014, LSN Research contacted investors from across the medical device map.  The results show that there are more active investors in the medical device sector than in therapeutics, despite opinion to the contrary.  However, we have seen a marked difference between these two groups of investors – while therapeutic investors are more likely to be focused on early stage companies, medtech investors are distributed more evenly across a company’s lifespan.  The chart below shows the respective distributions of investors among LSN’s mandate data:

So when it comes to early stage companies, you may well find there is more interest in therapeutics than in devices.  However at the growth phase, you’ll find many investors taking an interest in more mature medical technology opportunities.  Many investors are only looking for companies with substantial revenues, but some we’ve spoken with also look at commercialization-stage opportunities; that is, devices that have regulatory approval and need investment to scale their manufacturing and marketing.

Here are some of the reasons that investors have given for their interest in later-stage medical device opportunities:

• “We’ve had success investing in healthcare.”  These investors have previously invested in clinics and healthcare providers, and this familiarity with the marketplace gives them confidence that they can make the right bets in the medical device space.  Some of these investors may never have backed a device company before, but they’re receptive if the bottom line is right. LSN Research hears this perspective from family offices and from healthcare-focused PE funds. 

• “We don’t have the capacity to invest in drug development.”  These investors are eager to invest in healthcare technologies and they’re prepared to put commercialization capital into a new product, but the capital requirements of late-stage therapeutics are beyond them. Smaller PE funds elucidate this approach.

• “We know the business, but we don’t have a medical expert on staff.”  These investors have expertise in other relevant sectors (such as niche manufacturing or sales) but they do not feel they can accept scientific or regulatory risks.  They need assurance from a regulator that the product is scientifically sound, but with that taken care of they’re interested in applying their other skills to the early growth of a device company. Experienced generalist PE firms state this angle on the medical device sector.

• “We’re industry agnostic, but here are our other requirements.”  These generalists are looking for companies that match fixed requirements such as a revenue figure, or a headquarters in the investor’s region.  While they might be willing to invest early, they will want to see evidence that your product has market traction.  They’re willing to consider any industry provided the company’s within their ballpark. Many debt funds that provide financing for medical device companies fit this description, as do many regional PE firms. 

LSN Research consistently found that many growth investors who, on the surface, don’t have a life science focus are in fact open to medical device opportunities.  If you’re looking for funding for a device, you never know who it might be worth speaking to, so cast your net wide.