Community is our Superpower

Roundtable: Fundraising & Financing is our September kick-off informal lunchtime session, hosted by Nikolai Ahrens where you can discuss shared challenges and best practices on fundraising and financing with your peers.

Build enough of a safety margin, and you can survive being wrong (or maybe not).
This INSIGHTS examines three dimensions of scenario-planning and decision-making that most of you will face, or are already facing, where the perceived safety margin may in fact work against the intention behind it.

Ankit Mahadevia is a physician–entrepreneur and biotechnology executive with extensive experience in company formation, capital strategy, and clinical advancement. He currently serves as a CXO at Curie Bio, where he works closely with founding teams on corporate strategy, financing, and progression to human clinical trials.

One of the biggest frustrations when working across cultures is a different sense of urgency, follow-through, and deadlines. Paradoxically, (according to David Dye) leaders with a high internal sense of urgency seem to struggle with this the most.

David Dye is President of Let’s Grow Leaders, a global leadership development firm known for practical tools and techniques for human-centered leaders.

Who to onboard as a Non-Executive Director or independent Chair is one of your most important decisions you, as the founder CEO, have to make. It is a choice that must be made deliberately, not reactively.

In this INSIGHTS session, Kärt Tomberg, Co-Founder and CEO of Cambridge-based ExpressionEdits, will share how she built her board, including how, where and when she found her Chairman. 

A great board chair isn't a validator or a safety net. In life science ventures, where the stakes are clinical, commercial, and existential all at once, they are the person who holds your governance architecture together while you're building the science, the team, and the pipeline simultaneously.

In this INSIGHTS session, Jane Dancer will share what the relationship actually demands: how to define the mandate before you hire, what to look for beyond the CV, and how to onboard a NED.

Your Series A investor syndicate will set the tone in your business for years. The Lead investor will largely drive the shape of the syndicate and investors will take over control of the board. The choice of investors will affect every major aspect of your business, your strategy, capital allocation, future financings, your own role in the company. Governance lasts longer than the round.

In this INSIGHTS session, Jack O’Meara, CEO and co-founder of Aerska, will share his experience of raising a his recent Series A round for Aerska.

As a founder leading a science-based venture, you are operating in conditions of extreme uncertainty not only around technical risk, but also around how to build the right organization for your science. The early decisions you make about leadership, hiring, governance, and your own role will reverberate more than any dataset or fundraising round.

Robert Langer is one of nine Institute Professors at MIT; being an Institute Professor is the highest honor that can be awarded to a faculty member. He has written over 1,500 articles, which have been cited over 396,000 times; his h-index of 313 is the highest of any engineer in history and the 2nd highest of any individual in any field. His patents have licensed or sublicensed to over 400 companies; he is a cofounder of a number of companies including Moderna.

If you’re raising a Series A in the U.S., it is essential to understand how American venture firms evaluate the team, risk, timing, and upside potential. At Series A the focus shifts from possibility to probability, from potential to plan.

Craig Asher helped build a portfolio of 27 early-stage companies across therapeutics, bio tools, synthetic biology, and diagnostics, guiding them toward transformative milestones and favorable exits.

Monthly informal lunchtime session hosted by Nikolai Ahrens.

For many investors and potential collaborators, LinkedIn is now the first place they go, even before your website. According to Brunswick Group’s Connected Leadership report, 82% of investors use social media to assess a CEO’s credibility. In the early stages of building a venture, visibility and trust aren’t “nice-to-haves”, they shape access to capital, talent, and influence.

Known for his collaborative leadership and pragmatic approach, Bennett has helped organisations build digital communications functions from the ground up, activate employee voices on social media, and manage reputational challenges in high-stakes settings.

Many of you are now operating under pressure that no longer peaks and dips, it simply persists. Fundraising rounds drag on, board dynamics are increasingly difficult, teams are strained; and in most cases, the mission you’re driving is one that touches you personally. 

Annastiina is CEO of Hintsa Performance, the firm behind the personal performance systems used by the majority of Formula 1 drivers.

Too often, one falls in love with a modality, a platform, or a technological breakthrough, before asking the only question that matters: is there a patient? In 5-7 years’ time , will we be first-in-class or best-in-class? If these questions are not answered early and forcefully, the entire innovation stack risks accelerating in the wrong direction.

Sven Fraterman, Partner at BCG and lead of its Center for Oncology Insights, will examine how CEOs can use Target Product Profiles (TPPs) as a strategic instrument.

Monthly informal lunchtime session hosted by Nikolai Ahrens.

Members-Only: Funding & Financing Breakfast

For early-stage founders, capital relationships start before the pitch. How you first connect with investors, and how you stay visible between rounds, has long-term implications, well beyond closing a single raise.

Rainer Christine is Managing Partner at Earlybird Venture Capital, where he works with biotech and medtech founders building from first data through to growth.