For Startups – Advisory & Acceleration

For Startups – Scaling Deeptech & Life Science Ventures

Why It Matters

Deeptech and life science startups often develop groundbreaking technology, but they frequently struggle to translate their scientific breakthroughs into successful businesses. A report by the Boston Consulting Group (BCG) and Hello Tomorrow highlights that deeptech ventures face significant challenges, with many struggling to reach scale due to long time-to-market, high capital intensity, and a lack of well-defined commercial applications. Without a clear path to market and a compelling story for investors, a promising technology can remain a niche product instead of scaling globally.

The Challenge for Startups

Founders in regulated industries face a unique set of barriers that are distinct from those of traditional software startups:

• Complex storytelling: Communicating advanced, science-based technology to a broad audience of customers and generalist investors is incredibly difficult.
• Limited go-to-market (GTM) experience: Many founding teams are experts in research but lack the commercial experience needed to build a GTM strategy, define an ideal customer profile (ICP), and execute a sales plan.
• Fundraising pressure: The long R&D cycles and high capital costs of deeptech make fundraising a continuous and time-consuming process that can divert focus from core product development.
• Network gaps: Founders often lack direct connections to key players in the ecosystem, such as corporate partners in pharma, potential customers at OEMs, or specialized deeptech investors.

How I Help

I provide tailored advisory, hands-on mentoring, and crucial ecosystem access to help founders overcome these challenges. My support focuses on key areas to accelerate a startup's journey from lab to market:

• Investor Readiness: I help founders refine their pitch deck, financial projections, and prepare for investor Q&A to effectively communicate their vision and de-risk the investment.
• Go-to-Market (GTM) Roadmap: We work together to define a clear GTM strategy, including identifying the ICP, targeting early markets, and developing viable pricing models that capture the value of the technology.
• Pilot & Customer Engagement: I help design compelling pilot proposals and engagement strategies that resonate with corporate partners in pharma and OEMs, turning initial interest into tangible partnerships.
• Ecosystem Access: I leverage a broad network to connect founders with the right investors, corporate partners, and innovation clusters, opening doors that are often difficult to access.

My Experience

I am a co-founder of the Science Entrepreneur Club, an organization that has supported a large network of startups (+515 members) and investors (+470 members). Through this work, I have gained extensive experience helping science-based ventures navigate the complexities of fundraising and commercialization. As a former operator at Clustermarket, I gained practical experience building traction with a diverse range of customers, from highly regulated pharma and biotech labs to flexible academic environments. This dual perspective, as a founder and an operator, gives me a unique understanding of the challenges and opportunities at the early stages of a deeptech startup's journey.

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Sources:

• BCG: A joint report by the Boston Consulting Group and Hello Tomorrow titled "From Tech to Deep Tech" identifies the key challenges faced by deeptech startups, including long time-to-market and high capital intensity, which often prevent them from reaching scale. The report notes that these ventures require a different approach to funding and commercialization than traditional tech companies.
• Deeptech Challenges: The specific challenges listed for deeptech startups, such as complex storytelling, long development cycles, and high capital needs, are widely recognized and documented in articles and reports from publications and organizations that focus on venture capital and deeptech, including those from TheNextWeb, Divami, and Golden Egg Check. These sources emphasize that these challenges are inherent to the nature of science-based innovation and require a distinct strategic approach.