Tag Archives: Investors

RESI Panel Announced: Asia Pacific Investors

13 Oct

By Cole Bunn, Senior Research Analyst, LSN

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Numerous Asian-based venture firms have created investment offices in the states to uncover U.S. technology that fills an unmet need back home. These investors are looking to acquire an early stake and shepherd innovative products through the unfamiliar regulatory agencies/process, business environment and healthcare system at large.

LSN has recently recognized this trend with a dedicated track to explore these investor’s specific appetite and first-hand insight into cross-border deals, and we’re excited to bring these panels to the West Coast where there is a large amount of such activity.

Asia Pacific Investors panelists will include the following:

By registering for RESI San Francisco on January 10 (Tuesday of JPM week), you’ll be able to listen to these investors discuss the technologies they’re seeking in the US and how they can drive value by leveraging overseas networks and infrastructure.  The RESI Asia-North America Track will provide numerous opportunities to expand your network in the life sciences and learn more about the fundraising process in general.

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RESI Boston Panel Announcement: Early Stage Therapeutics Investors

11 Aug

By Lucy Parkinson, Director of Research, LSN

Boston is often called the center of the global biotechnology industry, and it’s therefore no surprise that investors are flocking to RESI Boston to meet with early stage drug development entrepreneurs. LSN has gathered a panel of 5 top investors in therapeutics to share their tips and insights on the assessment of novel therapeutic technologies.

These five panelists will be sharing their expertise with RESI’s audience:

The panel will cover the challenges of raising capital for early stage drug development.  It’s a high-risk, high-reward investment sector, and these five investors have a wealth of experience in searching for the strongest early stage opportunities.  Representing diverse groups, from foundations to VC to pharma, these investors will explain how you can position your company to work with them.  If you’re interested in catching this panel live, you can sign up for RESI Boston 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 on MaRS Double Panel Announcement – Early Stage Therapeutic Investors and Incubators & Accelerators Share Their Perspectives

26 May

By Christine A. Wu, Research Analyst, LSN

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Early Stage Therapeutic Investors

It is well known that early stage therapeutic companies require a significant source of funding due to the long road of development. Despite therapeutic companies’ high-risk development timeline, many investors continue to remain focused on investing in biotechnology with a steadfast belief in the potential of the space.

For RESI on MaRS (June 23rd), LSN has assembled five highly experienced investors particularly interested in biotech therapeutics. Held in the heart of Canada’s healthcare innovation hub, MaRS Discovery District, the Early Stage Therapeutic Investors Panel will be moderated by Cynthia Lavoie, Partner of TVM Capital, and will be joined by:

The panel will serve as an educational opportunity for scientist entrepreneurs to better understand the trends in investment in therapeutics, the investor’s perspective when approaching a deal in a high-risk space, and the best approach to initiate dialogue with them.

This is a tremendous opportunity for biotech life science entrepreneurs to meet and develop relationships with potential investors.

Incubators & Accelerators

It’s a huge challenge to launch a healthcare startup, but an increasing number of incubators and accelerator programs are stepping up to support early stage entrepreneurs and provide services, facilities and capital to speed their paths to market.

Leaders from five of these organizations are gathering at RESI on MaRS to share their experience of working with very early stage companies, and to explore how a startup can work with an incubator or accelerator partner to get ahead on their development pathway.

The moderator, Rebecca Yu, Head of JLABS @ Toronto, will be joined by:

Register for RESI@MaRS now to meet these investors in person.

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Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) Conference…Get On Board the Investor Train

31 Mar

By Dennis Ford, Founder & CEO, LSN

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When LSN founded the Redefining Early Stage Investments (RESI) conference in 2013, it was with the simple hope of creating an event that offered more to early stage life science investors and CEOs than the other partnering events that existed at the time. LSN’s business development team had visited partnering events and investor conferences throughout the USA and also internationally, and had met few active early stage investors at these events. As LSN began to cultivate relationships with these firms and discover what kinds of technologies they were seeking to invest in, we saw the opportunity to create an event that would bring these investors together to meet with fundraising CEOs whose technologies matched their investment mandates.

We’re now approaching the 8th RESI event, and over the last three years thousands of entrepreneurs and investors have come face to face at RESI to talk about new healthcare technologies. RESI has picked up the pace every year, becoming a quarterly event for the first time in 2016.

Not only that, but RESI has hit the road; following three successful RESI events in Boston, LSN saw the opportunity to host RESI in San Francisco during the annual healthcare conference week. Organizing an event so far from our home office in Boston was a tremendous challenge that took LSN beyond our previous comfort zone, but we found that RESI was well received as a part of the annual JPM ecosystem, filling a niche for early stage companies and investors that had previously been lacking in a conference week that’s primarily geared to later stage and publicly traded companies.

Last year, RESI also expanded to Houston as a part of Texas Medical Center’s efforts to build a “Third Coast” for healthcare innovation, supported by the resources, expertise and discoveries made at their member institutions. Houston has also attracted many other strategic partners to this effort, including Johnson & Johnson’s JLABS. Being in the right place at the right time is a gift in any innovative technology endeavor, and recognizing that RESI and JLABS are now coinciding in [geography], JLABS became RESI’s title sponsor.

This summer, RESI will take another step: the first international event, held at MaRS in Toronto on June 23rd. As we’ve added new events to the RESI circuit, we’ve brought new faces into LSN’s informal network at every new venue and uncovered the unique strengths and needs of each area.

So how have we continued to build RESI’s value? One question we typically ask fundraising CEOs is how many investor meetings they’ve had in the last year. We might typically hear they’ve pitched to a dozen or more investors in one year. RESI provides an opportunity to participate in both scheduled and ad hoc meetings, and many CEOs report up to 16 -20 meetings in one day, four times per year, with active investors who are a fit for their opportunity. With the potential for over 80 meetings for those that attend every event, there aren’t any other events that offer a comparable return on effort for a CEO on the road looking for development capital. And after 7 successful events, we’ve heard from many investors that they’ve conducted due diligence on companies that they’ve met at RESI.

LSN is looking ahead to a busy year for RESI, with events lined up in Houston (April 11th), Toronto (June 23rd) and Boston (September 13th) for our ever-expanding network to come together. We’re excited to be breaking new ground and hope you’ll join us on this global investor circuit.

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RESI@TMCx Panel Announcement: Diagnostic Investors

24 Mar

By Cole Bunn, Research Analyst, LSN

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The diagnostics space encompasses a very wide range of technologies targeting indications across the board, and is arguably the most difficult sector, under the life science umbrella, to successfully navigate. Not only do these entrepreneurs have to first identify the correct capital providers and strategic partners to make their technologies a commercial reality, like everyone else, but piquing the interests of those entities may be considerably more difficult. Oftentimes, clearly articulating the value proposition of your diagnostic product/service is a little trickier than that of a more traditional therapeutic or medical device, and the go-to-market strategy for these technologies will usually be more highly scrutinized.

Moderated by John Walter, CEO & President, Alliance for Cancer Gene Therapy Foundation, this session will feature:

Given the complex strategic landscape diagnostics often face, along with the importance of the having the correct strategy in place, the value of guidance and feedback from experienced diagnostic investors can’t be overstated. This diverse set of panelists, representing a variety of different funds and organizations, will give the audience firsthand perspectives to help position their companies for success.

Registering for the RESI Conference will give you the opportunity to listen to this panel live, connect with relevant investors and network with like-minded entrepreneurs.

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RESI@TMCx Panel: Medical Device Investors Share Their Strategies

24 Mar

By Lucy Parkinson, Director of Research, LSN

Medtech innovation is one of the focuses of Texas Medical Center’s innovation programs, with TMCx focusing its startup acceleration program on medical devices and healthcare IT. RESI@TMCx will provide a venue for investors to meet with innovative medical device startups from Texas and beyond, and this panel session will explore what it takes to get a new device product funded and commercialized.

Moderated by Angela Shah, Editor, Xconomy, the panelists are:

The panelists will share their experience and insight on the medical device sector, including what areas of medical technology are of peak interest right now, what factors they examine when performing diligence on a medical device company, and what opportunities they see for the future of device innovation. If you’d like to hear from these experienced investors and from our expert moderator, you can register for RESI now.

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