Adding value to research projects

In 2018, Biocat kicked off The Investment Readiness Series, a series of meetings between scientists and investors that hopes to add value to the research projects through one-to-one mentoring; help venture capitalists, corporate investors and venture builders scouting for projects by bringing together top-notch research; and establish a long-term relationship with technology transfer offices (TTOs), leveraging the impact of their work on an ecosystem level. There were two calls that year, one in Barcelona and one in London.

The first edition of The Investment Readiness Series, focusing on therapies, was held on November 6 and 8 at the Payment Innovation Hub in Barcelona, with support from Johnson & Johnson and the “la Caixa” Banking Foundation. Participants included 32 biotechnology projects and 8 investment funds and companies, which held 113 meetings, some of which led to good contacts and kicked off the process of advising and funding the projects.

On December 12, another event was held in London, The Investment Readiness Series in the City, where seven Catalan business projects pitched to investors from London, Cambridge and Oxford. This way, entrepreneurs from the Catalan healthcare and life sciences sector had the chance to meet in London with investors from Britain’s Golden Triangle, including AstraZeneca, Seroba Life Sciences, IP Group and Arix Bioscience. The program was organized by Biocat and ACCIÓ, with collaboration from Newable, MedCity and One Nucleus and support from the European Boost4Health program.

Biocat expects to launch new calls of The Investment Readiness Series every year, each with a different theme and both local and international projects and investors.