In the session on September 16th, Michael walked us through the investor perspective on Tubulis’ original Seed/Series A round back in 2020, which he led. In this session, Dominik takes us through that same financing round, but providing the co-founder CEO perspective, ie. the other side of the table.
Splitting the pitch from the science was one piece of it. The rest, including the investor wish-list and the board he ended up with, is what this session walks through.
The same eight questions, from the other side of the table
Which skills did Dominik have to develop, and which came naturally?
What were the advantages to having Jonas as his co-founder?
Who did he need in his corner before investors would say yes: KOLs, pharma contacts, other investors?
Which slide in his own deck did the most work?
Was it straightforward to raise the funds or were there pivots along the way?
What evidence did he have to have in hand before anyone believed the market case?
How did he get his own investors to start selling the story for him and did they?
Did he get to choose between one lead and two, or was that decided for him?
Was a US investor ever part of the conversation, why yes or why not?
Tubulis went on to raise an upsized Series B round of €128 million in 2024 and a €344 million Series C round in 2025, the largest Series C round ever raised by a European biotech, before Gilead Sciences agreed this April to acquire the company for up to $5 billion.
You will walk away with a case study of an European founder who managed to take his venture to a $5 billion acquisition
Dr. Dominik Schumacher co-founded Tubulis in 2018 with Jonas Helma-Smets, building on research from the Leibniz-Forschungsinstitut für Molekulare Pharmakologie in Berlin and LMU Munich. As CEO, he led the company from inception via its €10.7 million Seed/Series A round in 2020 to the record €344 million Series C in 2025, before Gilead Sciences agreed this April to acquire Tubulis for up to $5 billion. He was named one of MIT's Innovators Under 35 in 2019 and holds a PhD from Humboldt University of Berlin.