Tag Archives: global investors

Early Stage Global Investors Converging on RESI@JPM

5 Nov

By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, LSN 

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JPM week is a very busy time of year for the biotech and medtech industries. With investors’ January schedules already filling up, it’s important for entrepreneurs to get themselves in the right place at the right time in order to meet with the hundreds of investors who will be in San Francisco that week. That is how you create relationships that could lead to an allocation.

LSN’s Redefining Early Stage Investments San Francisco event will be taking place on January 12th, 2016, and is shaping up to be the most dynamic yet in terms of investors already signing up. Evidently, investors are more organized than the rest of us! I am pleased to announce that RESI already has 150 investors from 16 countries registered to attend the event. This early trend is on track to surpass our most recent events in Boston and at TMCx in Houston in terms of investor turnout.

If you’d like to see all the firms and funds that have already registered for RESI, click the image below. We’re excited to welcome these and many more investors to the greatest RESI yet. If you’d like to join us at RESI, register here.

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East Meets West: The Lessons Learned

3 Jul

By Laura Chess, Research Analyst, LSN

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If you have just read the “East Meets West: By the Numbers”, I would like to provide some additional commentary from a canvassing perspective.

As a research analyst at LSN, one of the reasons I am able to get through to investors is that the purpose of my call is to find out what an investor’s interests are so that I can provide them with qualified dealflow. I am not trying to sell them something. During Asian night, June 18, I was pleasantly surprised with how open and receptive the investor candidates we canvassed were. My goal was to conduct a one-on-one survey that reveals the needs of investors that I had targeted from the Far East. Upon explaining that LSN can help them source and filter global life science companies that are a fit for their current investment mandates, the call becomes a pretty free-flowing conversation.

Below are the two observations I made that may be of help to the reader when canvassing the Asia Oceania region:

1) Many investors in Asia are open to considering western companies and actively seeking deal flow.

Many investors in the Asia-Pacific region don’t have offices in the U.S., which is sometimes misconstrued as a lack of interest in western-based start-ups. In our conversations, however, many Asian investors said they were open to cold calls, interested in establishing relationships with western biotech and medtech companies, and seeking deal flow. These investors were especially interested in companies looking to expand to Asia.

 2) To make the most of late-night outreach, choose large cities, be organized, and add a sense of urgency.

If you have the ability to reach out internationally, choose large cities, such as Hong Kong or Beijing, where investors are well versed in English. Sort the list of investors by time zone, with start times for each. And in the weeks leading up to your outreach, consider contacting investors by email to let them know the date and time when you will call. Taking such steps will help you achieve your primary goal: making as many calls as possible.

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A Word on Emerging Clusters

20 Nov

By Jack Fuller, Business Development, LSN

As a Boston-based company, Life Science Nation is by all accounts located in one of the greatest life science hubs in the world. An emerging company that can claim residence in Kendall Square somehow finds a certain level of implied acumen simply by virtue of being there. Investors also tend to gravitate toward the east and west coast “superclusters” when setting up offices. So how do companies outside of these geographic areas find and engage potential investors, given this apparent disadvantage?

Emerging Bioclusters such as St. Louis, Chicago, Colorado, and Florida – to name a few – have been growing through a combination of university, government, and private initiatives. Each cluster brings a unique dynamic of infrastructure and resources that have allowed the formation of innovative companies. I have spoken with several individuals at regional investment organizations who suggest that these are vibrant, growing communities of first class entrepreneurs and scientists.

As important as a regional network may be, an executive in an emerging cluster must maintain a global perspective. Any person looking to raise capital in today’s life science industry needs to think and act globally. Local investors and clusters are excellent at taking the first step, and have great experience in new company formation. Typically, good science and a solid management team are able to seed a company. However, in an emerging cluster, the funding gap between seed and a substantial series A tends to be larger than on the coasts.

Companies in emerging clusters have a few interesting value propositions they can distinctly take advantage of. First, many clusters are established around high-quality research institutions that provide a steady supply of qualified talent and innovation. Similarly, other clusters are home to major players in non-traditional “biotech” spaces such as AgBio and healthcare IT that can be taken advantage of when establishing local infrastructure and expertise.

One of the most important factors to an investor is the return per dollar invested.  There is a significant reduction in the cost of running a biotech company outside of Boston or the Bay area. When done correctly, a company can stretch $3-4M in the Midwest, to the equivalent of $6-7M on the coast. This decrease in operating costs means bigger returns for the investor. Investment in emerging clusters has been underfocused, and a savvy entrepreneur needs to leverage the regional momentum and resources available to become even more attractive than a similar company based in a major cluster.

When targeting global investors, the capital efficiency and strength of the management team become key factors in attracting significant interest. The question many investors will ask is: is this team going to be able to execute? The history of success stories, while present in emerging clusters, is still an area of concern to an investor.

All life science companies face the same challenges when raising capital. However, companies in an emerging cluster now have an opportunity to take the leap to the global stage. Take the question of execution out of the picture, and highlight the significant upside of investing in a company based in your region.

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