The pitch. Two simple words which send fear into the hearts of nervous entrepreneurs around the world. The moment when you sit down with a busy venture capitalist, take a deep breath, and try to persuade them of your start-up’s merits. Some will take to this process with ease after a few tries, others will stutter their way through speech after speech. Regardless of your fears, as a founder you will need to master this delicate beginning to the long funding dance. Why? Money.Start-ups, in particular those in the biotech arena, practically burn money. Technology development costs can easily burn hundreds of thousands of dollars in the first year, and there are very few founders out there with that kind of money in their bank accounts. So we turn to angel investors and venture capitalists, with their oversized wallets and hunger for strong returns. But for every VC fund there are swarms of competing start-ups, so venture capitalists can afford to pick the best of the best.
Given that, how do you persuade VCs that your idea has what it takes? That your company can deliver the growth and return on investment which they are looking for? You have to have the fundamentals, of course, the right team and the right product. But you also need to know the people in the field, their goals and target investments. This is why the upcoming Investor Roundtable at SynBioBeta SF 2015 is such a valuable opportunity, because attendees get to hear from several of the major names within the current VC space. The session will be moderated by Adam D’Augelli, a principal at True Ventures. Having founded several companies (including his own record label), and worked as both a consultant and VC, Adam will be keeping the beat going during our session.
One of our speakers is Dror Berman, the founding managing partner of Innovation Endeavors. This is an early stage venture capital firm with offices in Silicon Valley and Tel Aviv, both well-known innovation hotspots. Solely funded by Eric Schmidt (yes, Eric Schmidt from Google), they intentionally invest in companies across a wide range of industries. Innovation Endeavors’ portfolio spans over 60 companies, from the well-known such as Uber and AngelList through to sleeper hits such as Zymergen.One of the hallmarks of Innovation Endeavors is their willingness to take risks, trialling different investment approaches and industries. This approach can even be seen in Dror Berman, who refused to let a lack of formal venture capital experience stop him from pitching the fund idea to Eric Schmidt himself. The rest is history, as they say, and this Stanford MBA and ex-member of the Israeli Defence Force keeps going from strength to strength.
Curiosity Camp 2015 hosted by Innovation Endeavors. Source: Innovation Endeavors Instagram.
5 Prime Ventures is a San Francisco-based venture capital company, with a focus on funding early stage life-science firms. As this is a fairly broad spectrum, they have chosen to focus on start-ups in the fields of molecular diagnostics, as well as synthetic and industrial biology. Founded in 2014, their most recent activity was a 44 million Series A round investment in a name which is rapidly becoming familiar: Zymergen.5 Prime was founded by Jenny Rooke, who followed up her PhD in Genetics from Yale with a stint as a management consultant at McKinsey. After more experience in investment and business development at Fidelity Biosciences and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Global Health Diversity Group, she then decided to strike out on her own. She joined the Board of Directors of Caribou Biosciences, and will be speaking at our SF 2015 investor roundtable, although the impatient can also read her previous guest posts for SynBioBeta.
Our third speaker at the investor roundtable is Nan Li from Obvious Ventures. Obvious Ventures focuses their investments on three major themes, those of sustainable systems, people power, and healthy living. With capital invested into firms such as Beyond Meat (who produce meat substitutes), Olly (nutritional supplements) and, yes, Zymergen, Obvious Ventures’ portfolio covers a range of direct-to-consumer and business-to-business organisations.Originally a trained computer engineer, Nan Li started his investing career as a management consultant at Bain, rapidly being picked for a spot in their in-house VC team, Bain Capital Ventures. This led to several other opportunities including a stint at Innovation Endeavours, after which he moved on to his current position, Obvious Ventures’ Principal.
Joško Bobanović joins us from Sofinnova Partners, a Paris-based venture capital firm. With a focus on European opportunities, Sofinnova aims to invest in early stage life science companies, particularly those looking for Series A funding. With a current portfolio of over 40 firms (including Synthace) covering biopharmaceuticals, biotechnology, and industrial biotech, as well as many successful exits, Sofinnova is going from strength to strength.Joško comes to us as a partner in Sofinnova’s Green Seed Fund, which invests in renewable chemistry and bio-energy firms. Prior to his time at Sofinnova, Joško spent 8 years as a VC at iNovia Capital, successfully started several IT firms, and received a PhD in Oceanography.
The last of our speakers to be profiled is Matt Ocko, from Data Collective. Data Collective is a venture capital firm with a focus on entrepreneurs working in ‘big data’ – the analysis of vast amounts of data to identify and use otherwise undetectable patterns. This is a rapidly growing field, and indeed Data Collective has invested in over 100 companies to date, including Ginkgo Bioworks, Transcriptic and Zymergen.Matt Ocko is a co-managing partner of Data Collective, with an impressive CV comprising entrepreneurship (founder of Da Vinci Systems), invention (with over 40 patents), and venture capital (with experience in both the US and Chinese venture capital fields). He’ll be drawing on this experience for his upcoming speech at SynBioBeta.Session 4 of SynBioBeta SF 2015, the Investor Roundtable, will be running from 1:00 pm – 1:45 pm on Nov 4th.
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