By Caitlin Dolegowski, Program Director, LSN
Partnering conferences are a vital catalyst in an early-stage company’s journey toward securing capital and achieving milestone fundraising goals.
To help you get the absolute most bang for your buck during San Diego Convention Week, here are the top 8 strategies to maximize your ROI on the partnering meetings.
- Book Your Registration and Travel Early
Beyond the financial perks, registering early ensures that you are among the very first attendees to gain access to the Partnering system when it opens. In the world of fundraising, the early bird gets the open calendar slot before an investor’s schedule is completely booked.
- Perfect Your Partnering Profile Before Sending a Single Message
Once your partnering login hits your inbox, don’t rush straight to messaging. First, meticulously fill out your company profile, detail your tech, and upload your marketing materials (pitch deck and executive summary).
Investors will vet your profile page before hitting “Accept” on a meeting request; an incomplete profile is an automatic decline.
- Treat Your Meeting Requests Like a High-Value Pitch
When you begin reaching out to the hundreds of investors, your message needs to be crisp and compelling. Investors want to see specific data points right away. Ensure your meeting requests concisely address:
- The Hook: Introduce yourself and your company.
- The Tech: Clearly explain the product/platform.
- The Market: What critical unmet medical need does it address?
- The Edge: What does the competition look like, and why are you better?
- The Traction: Major landmarks, IP status, or clinical achievements to date.
- The Ask: Current financing needs and exactly how the capital will be used.
- Aggressively Fill Your Calendar
Fundraising is a numbers game. Use the partnering system’s advanced filter functions to map out investors who strictly match your company’s sector, indication, and fundraising size. Remember: Most investors will not contact you proactively. You must drive the outreach.
- Skip the Morning Rush: Grab Your Badge Early
Most conferences allow you to pick your event badge early. Keep an eye out for the early registration announcements. Picking up your badge a day early allows you to beat the morning lines, scope out the venue, and map your routes between partnering tables and panels so you don’t waste a single minute.
- There Are No Breaks in Fundraising
The in-person day in San Diego is an immersive networking marathon. Socializing over breakfast, lunch, and during the evening cocktail reception is just as critical as your scheduled partnering slots. Keep your elevator pitch polished, have your digital business cards or QR codes ready, and be prepared to network with everyone around you. You never know who you might sit next to at lunch.
- Be Flexible and Consider All Meeting Types
If an investor turns down a formal meeting request due to a scheduling conflict, do not give up. Use the flexibility of the multiple partnering days to find a slot. Even if a mutual window can’t be found within the conference dates, use the platform to pivot and pitch an ad-hoc meeting via Zoom or a coffee chat outside the formal boundaries.
- Network Peer-to-Peer
While investors are the primary target, remember the immense value of talking to fellow founders, CEOs, and service providers. Building a network of peers allows you to share fundraising intelligence, compare notes on active investors, and discover trusted vendors.
Think Big: Build a Full-Year Partnering Runway
Because fundraising is a continuous effort, looking at a single event in isolation can leave gaps in your capital pipeline. LSN hosts five RESI conferences a year globally, feeding into an internal database tracking over 10,000 early-stage life science investors across Venture Capital, Family Offices, Angels, and Corporate Venture arms.
To maintain unstoppable momentum from summer into fall, look into options like the RESI San Diego & RESI Boston Bundle, which locks in your 5-Day Hybrid passes for both the June San Diego and September Boston events. Plan your milestones around the RESI calendar, start your outreach early, and put your best foot forward this June!
Tags: business, digital-marketing, entrepreneurship, marketing, technology
As partnering activity ramps up ahead of convention week in San Diego, early-stage life science companies are preparing for a critical week of fundraising, licensing, and strategic business development. To help companies better understand how large pharmaceutical companies evaluate new opportunities, Life Science Nation is hosting a webinar featuring leaders from Merck, Servier, and Meiji Pharma USA.
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