Tag Archives: Family Office

RESI San Diego: Family Office Investors Discuss Strategy and What Makes Them Different

20 Jul

By Cole Bunn, Senior Research Analyst, LSN

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As the RESI San Diego event is now in the rearview mirror and we prepare to bring RESI home to Boston (Sept. 26th), we wanted to take a closer look at the Medtech Family Office panel session. Family offices are clearly a highly sought-after investor class and are not completely understood by a large portion of entrepreneurs. To that end, we’ve pulled out some of the most insightful points that were discussed and distilled the panel session into this summary video to help shed some light on how family offices evaluate early-stage investments, how to reach them and what differentiates them from VCs and other early-stage investors.

Family offices are not a silver bullet for your financing needs

A lot of entrepreneurs mistakenly believe that finding a family office will solve all their fundraising woes i.e. long-term investors with less rigid requirements. While it is true that family offices tend to be more patient capital and more flexible with terms and deal structures (a result of not having to answer to LPs), these groups are in fact looking for a return and typically will be active either at the board or management level to hit milestones and create value. Additionally, as your company grows and matures, the capital requirements and expertise required for the healthcare space oftentimes necessitate bringing in deep-pocketed institutional investors, who family offices maintain relationships with.

Family offices are purposefully low visibility

Given that family office investors have no mandate or timeline to allocate money, they can wait on the best deals and entrepreneurs to surface, therefore their deal sourcing channels are much different than a VC or another institutional investor. Further, these groups tend to be very much relationship-oriented. Networking is a must to uncover these investors and begin building a relationship, with some of the best events to attend being a part of universities and tech transfer offices as well as focused partnering conferences, such as the RESI conference.

Family offices are not homogenous

This point can’t be stressed enough. While there are some common themes among these groups (mostly dictated by structure or lack thereof), they are largely very different. Some may be more philanthropically motivated as they are looking to fund research/companies pursuing indications that have afflicted their family while others act more like an institutional fund with a focus on returns. It is essential to do as much research as possible on each specific family office to try and find mutual connections and the best way to approach them.

Moderated by Michael Quigley, VP of Investor Research, LSN, the panel includes the following speakers:

  • Sean Kearny, Managing Director, Three Leaf Ventures
  • Kyle Williams, President, Bootstrap Incubation
  • John Kinzell, Sr. Life Science Analyst, The McNair Group
  • Julia Belaya, Director – Corporate Partnerships, Plug & Play Tech Center

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Must See Video—CEOs explain sourcing Family Offices, Working Your Pipeline and Cost of Campaigns – Tales from the Road at RESI

13 Jul

By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, Life Science Nation; Creator of RESI Conference Series

More frequently than not LSN captures content through its RESI panels that hits the nail on the head. The recent “Tales from the Road” Panel does just that. It’s 6 minutes long but worth a viewing it if you are a scientist-entrepreneur or fundraising CEO. The most vital take-aways include how to source potential investors (particularly family offices), the process of “working” your pipeline of investors, and the costs associated with conducting a successful campaign.

The panel brought together successful biotech and medtech entrepreneurs to tell their stories of successfully raising capital. These are seasoned entrepreneurs who have been there done that and collectively have raised numerous private financing rounds and have exited multiple companies, with combined total deals exceeding $750 MM. They came to RESI San Diego to share their wisdom to fellow fundraising executives and provide insight in order to help their peers succeed.

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Family Offices Converge on RESI to Meet Early Stage Biotech and Medtech Startups

8 Jun

By Lucy Parkinson, Director of Research, LSN

RESI is a venue where early stage life science startups can meet with investors of every type that are a fit for their company’s technology and stage – and that includes family offices. RESI San Diego features two panels devoted to this elusive investor class – Biotech Family Offices and Medtech Family Offices. Whether you’re developing a novel therapeutic, an innovative device or an improved diagnostic solution, Family Offices can’t be overlooked as a potential source of capital and RESI will provide you with the opportunity to hear advice and insight directly from key investment decision makers from family offices.

Biotech Family Offices, moderated by Colin Widen (CEO, Boston Innovation Capital), features:

Medtech Family Offices, moderated by Michael Quigley (VP of Market Research, Life Science Nation), features:

To catch this rare opportunity to meet family office investors with a focus on early stage life science investment, register for RESI now.

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RESI San Francisco Panel Announcement: Biotech Family Offices

15 Dec

By Lucy Parkinson, Director of Research, LSN

RESI has always aimed to represent the diversity of capital sources for early stage life science companies; alongside sessions featuring VCs, pharma, angels, and other traditional sources of capital, LSN is proud to feature two sessions devoted to Family Offices that invest in new healthcare ventures. The Biotech Family Office sesssion features investors from five different firms who will cover the wide-ranging interests of family offices in the early stage drug development sector.

Moderated by Jayson Rieger (SVP of Business Development & Portfolio Management, PBM Capital), the panelists are:

Christine Bunt (Venture Partner, 20/20 HealthCare Partners)
Will Eden (Vice President, Thiel Capital)
Daron Evans (Managing Director, PoC Capital)
Alex Pickett (Associate, Mediqventures)

If you’d be interested in hearing how these family offices source and assess biotech opportunities, and what you need to do to align your company with their investment ethos, you can register for RESI now.

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RESI on MaRS: The Family Offices Investor Panel

28 Jul

By Cole Bunn, Senior Research Analyst, LSN

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Due to their recent trend toward making direct allocations (as opposed to fund investments) family offices have certainly caught the attention of biotech and medtech entrepreneurs, with many early stage companies keen to add one to their cap table.

Viewed as deep-pocketed, patient capital sources, entrepreneurs tend to have a lot of misconceptions surrounding family offices. Family offices are notoriously heterogeneous; they come in many shapes and sizes and no specific investment characteristics apply to them all. At our most recent RESI event at the MaRS Discovery District, representatives from four different family offices spoke to how they like to be approached, what they look for in an entrepreneur and the importance of the relationship, the types of deals they like to do and what they avoid.

Moderated by Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO of Life Science Nation and the RESI Conference Series, this session featured the following:

Key takeaways from the panel include:

  • Tailor your message based on who you’re approaching – do your homework

This point goes for all investors, but goes a bit deeper and is even more important for the family office. First off, you want to make sure you are talking to the right investor or else you’re wasting everyone’s time – it’s unlikely that an investor whose only ever played in the therapeutics space will be interested in looking at an investment opportunity in a medical device or health IT project. That being said, if your technology isn’t in the same sector but is addressing the same indication as one of their portfolio companies or there is synergy between your project and a portfolio company, this should be noted in the outreach. These types of things can go a long way and can’t be uncovered if you don’t research the investor you’re targeting.

  • A strong relationship is crucial to securing funding from a family office

Some family offices have professionals manage their money and add structure to their investment process while others are more informal. Either way, since the money is not coming from an institutional fund and family offices typically have longer investment timelines, it is key that the entrepreneur and investor have a good relationship. One investor added that a lot of the deals he’s done begun with a dialogue with the entrepreneur long before the deal was formally presented as an investment opportunity, mentioning that it takes a while to get to know someone and naturally people like to do business with people they like and trust.

  • Finding a family office takes work

Family offices are a highly sought after investors for good reason and typically don’t always advertise their investment activity thus uncovering which groups are family offices is not as easy as finding angel groups and VCs. As one investor puts it, “You can’t just expect to wake up and know which family office is interested in the sector you are in.” He further notes that the best way to find a family office is by going to relevant conferences and networking events.

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RESI Panel Announcement: Family Offices

31 Mar

By Lucy Parkinson, Director of Research, LSN

Family offices often catch the interest of entrepreneurs due to the possibility of committed, long-term capital from investors who look to the long view regarding their investment decisions.  Family offices may also have unique investment motivations that relate to the family’s particular expertise and history.  With a reputation for being deep-pocketed and flexible investors, life science CEOs are often interested in meeting with family office investors, and this panel will allow the RESI@TMCx audience to learn directly from family office investment staff about how they invest, what they look for in a life science opportunity, and how to find alignment with their needs.

Moderated by Colin Widen, CEO, Boston Innovation Capital, the panelists are:

If you’re interested in listening to this panel live at RESI, you can register for RESI@TMCx now.

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Hot Life Science Investor Mandate 2: Family Office Seeking 510k Devices in Eastern US

7 May

The operational and investment arm of a family office is looking to make equity investments into early stage companies and small mid-market growth companies ranging from $.5 to $1 million. The firm is very open to syndication particular with early stage deals and is capable of providing additional capital in follow on rounds when appropriate. The firm prefers to invest in companies located in the eastern United States and looks to make approximately 1-2 new investments per year.

The firm is looking for companies in the Medical Technology and Diagnostics space. Within these areas the firm is looking for 510k devices that are more technically based with a particular interest in hospital equipment and professional diagnostics. The firm is not interest in devices where the final consumer is the patient. The firm is looking to devices that improve the standard of care and is willing to invest in companies at all phases of development. The firm is generally open to all indications.

If you are interested in more information about this investor and other investors tracked by LSN, please email mandates@lifesciencenation.com

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