BACKED VC

"It takes company to build a village, and a village to build any great company." 🏴☠️ And it takes Slush to generate the most incredible energy for our ecosystem! Dive into the gallery of highlights from last week: 🚀 THE SLUSH OFFICIAL OPENING LP RECEPTION 🚀 Co-hosted with Slush, this was the most material gathering of European and US venture allocators to date, with over $2tn AUM represented in one room.   We had present the three largest allocators to European venture, top sovereign wealth funds, many institutionalised family offices and the leading VC-focused Funds of Funds.   Our special thanks to our friend Ross Morrison (Adams Street Partners) for sharing perspectives and proprietary data collected over decades. And our dear panelists Martin Mignot (Index Ventures), Leyla Holterud (StepStone Group) and Joe Schorge (Isomer Capital). 🪩  THE BACKED PARTY 2024 🪩 The best yet. Memorable and meaningful. We welcomed 1400+ of you wild creatures. We counted the "check-ins" and had solid representation across the spectrum of the ecosystem: among you, 451 founders & CEOs (of which 16 unicorn founders), 277 partners at VC funds, 236 LPs, far more than half of this year's Slush speakers, lots of VCs, operators and interesting folks.   We are working harder to foster the diversity we need in our ecosystem, and we’re happy to report that this year we hit an attendee list of just over 40% women. If we all keep doing the right things, we’ll get to 50:50! Alongside our flagship activations and plethora of 1:1s, we hosted intimate dinners, including The Future of Finance with Portage and #FrontierTech LP Dinner with Google and Fabric Ventures. We also shared a stage alongside BACKED Founders Pete Sharman and William Pelton at TONIC Summit! 🙌 THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.  🙌 To you. For coming. For bringing energy. For engaging in conversations. To the Slush team. For this grand collab, now in its 7th year, which just keeps getting better. To Elin Dölker, Aino Bergius, Konrad Kordowski, Oliver Reinius and the Slush leadership team for your vision and organisation. And to the incredible volunteers who look after us all. Finally, thank you to our generous partners, who are the leaders in their verticals: Amazon Web Services (AWS) Carta, Goodwin, HSBC Innovation Banking and Stripe. 💥 The MVPs of the ecosystem! 💥 If you want to do work with them, let us know - we will connect you to the right people (tagged below). 🤝 PARTNERING TOGETHER 🤝 If you're a founder at the seed stage, out to build the next category-defining global unicorn, reach out to one of our team. The vast majority of the time, we’re hard at work investing and toiling away for our founders. Love from your favourite frontier tech seed fund 🏴☠️ Andre de Haes, Alex Brunicki and the BACKED team

🎉 Ochre Bio was a finalist for the 'Deal of the Year over €500M' at the European Lifestars Awards - Celebrating Life Science Leaders - Celebrating Life Science Leaders! Our partnership with Boehringer Ingelheim, worth up to $1 Billion to transform treatment for late-stage liver diseases, has been recognised as one of the top deals in Europe. We were honoured to have our work acknowledged by Europe’s leading life science investors and strategists, and contribute to the UK & Ireland winning region of the year. To top that, our partner GSK won 'BD Team of the Year', with our deal being highlighted as contributing to their award. A huge thank you to our team, partners, and everyone who has supported us on this journey!

We did it… 🎉   Today, we’re thrilled to announce that over £250 Million in capital has been raised for the UK’s female founders 🇬🇧   This marks a historic milestone in our mission to make the UK the best place in the world for female entrepreneurs to thrive.   Major investors - including Barclays, M&G plc, British Business Bank, Morgan Stanley, Visa Foundation, BGF and Aviva - have pledged their commitment to investing in female-led businesses, either directly or through the ‘Women Backing Women’ fund.   At over £250 million, the funding pool is among the largest globally for female-powered teams.    Female decision-makers will be responsible for deploying the investment pool. Recognising that women invest in women 2x the rate of men, dismantling systemic barriers for both female entrepreneurs and investors.   This is just the beginning… 🚀

LONDON BIO was a roaring success this week. Our 6th edition, taking place alongside Jefferies Healthcare Conference 2024 in London on Tuesday 19th November. Yasmin Siraj of BACKED VC Jack O'Meara and Emma Tinsley of Weatherden hosted over 160 guests aboard the HMS Wellington for Afternoon Tea - a truly unique break in conference and side event schedules. ⚡"At #LONDONBIO we bring in game changers in the industry to share their wisdom and experiences with our diverse community, and it was great to do so during London life sciences week and see folks from all over the over the globe attend." - Yasmin, our biotech investment manager⚡ We heard three lightning talks from six esteemed speakers: Otello Stampacchia (Omega Funds), Bharatt Chowrira (PureTech Health), Luba Greenwood, J.D. (Gallop Oncology), Sutha Satkunarajah (Flagship Pioneering), Anta Gkelou (Sofinnova Partners), Najat Khan, PhD (Recursion). We operate with Chatham House rules so will share only a few topics discussed (be there for the next one in Q1 2025!): 🔄 We heard from the engaging Otello, who has invested in companies that have launched 50 drugs thus far, about a range of topics: one of his most memorable success stories; his mindset regarding building exceptional teams; and his discipline regarding when to invest in and exit from emerging technologies along the Gartner hype cycle. 🌎 Bharatt, Najat, and Sutha delved into how their companies span the continental divide between the US and UK and dug into how they think about retaining right to win via creative business models such as the hub-and-spoke model, relying on human data, thinking carefully about when to form partnerships to accelerate development, and retaining laser focus on areas with they largest unmet medical need and market size. 🧬 Lastly, Luba and Anta provided a fresh perspective on the inherent challenges of developing computationally enabled biotech companies from a cultural perspective, digging into the contrasting mindsets, compensations, and comforts of engineers vs scientists and the conflicts that can result. Our evening was made possible by our partners that serve as true enablers in the biotech ecosystem Amazon Web Services (AWS) (Alex Merwin, Natalie Holman-Shepherd) JonesTrading (James O'Neill, Jack Terranova, Rock Tonkel) Hlx Life Sciences (Max Eldridge), Canary Wharf Group (Mairi Dillon) Kadans Science Partner, Meru Advisors (Victoria Igumnova) and Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP (Luciana Griebel) And of course, thank you to THE WELLINGTON TRUST for hosting us, especially the wonderful team: Dominic, Alec, Fiona Sparkes and Clemmie Batty. 🙌 🏴☠️ We’ll be sharing updates on BACKED’s LinkedIn and X @BackedVC, so do follow along to stay up to date and get updates for our next #LONDONBIO! #biotech #techbio #lifesciences #Jefferies24 Here are a couple of highlights from the evening in the meantime taken by 📸 Tobie Charlton - more to follow.

Investor Day at Slush was incredible. 💠 We hosted the Official LP Opening Reception alongside Slush, notably Konrad Kordowski and Oliver Reinius 💠 An intimate Frontier Tech LP Dinner with our friends at Fabric Ventures 💠 At TONIC Summit, we shared a stage with 4 inspiring founders including two from the BACKED family: Pete Sharman and William Pelton - more on that v soon! Slush reminds us how lucky we are to know and love so many great founders, investors and partners. So today, ahead of our BACKED Party tomorrow, we share the fourth and final partner, with whom we work so closely, Goodwin. "We’re thrilled to be heading to Helsinki and partnering with BackedVC for their much-anticipated Backed Party ‘24! This event is a highlight for the tech and venture capital community, and we’re excited to connect with some of the most innovative minds in the industry. At Goodwin, we’re all about supporting the innovators and investors shaping the future, so partnering with long-standing client BackedVC was a natural fit. We can’t wait to join in on the fun in one of the coolest cities—both in vibe and temperature. See you in Helsinki!" - Adam Thatcher, Technology Partner at Goodwin.   ⚖️ Goodwin is a trusted legal partner in the innovation space with a global footprint, and helps visionaries navigate and scale from start-up through to exit and beyond. They are in the business of building authentic, long-term relationships with clients, who are some of the world’s most successful and innovative investors, entrepreneurs, and disruptors in the technology industry. DM Adam or the team in Helsinki to learn more - Andrew Davis, Emily Townsend, William Schnoor and with thanks to the powerhouses BTS: Georgina Greening Millie Muress 🙌 #partnership #legal #Slush24 #TheBACKEDParty

We welcome top industry experts to share their insights at #LONDONBIO every quarter. 🧬 We saw the need for a biotech and lifescience interdisciplinary group to share learnings and build connections across the sector in the UK. After 1 year we have now grown to over 200 person exceptional community. 🔬 Tomorrow, we bring this together for our Q4 edition of LONDONBIO during Jefferies Healthcare Conference with some truly exceptional speakers: 🎤 Emma Tinsley from Weatherden in discussion with Anta Gkelou at Sofinnova Partners and Luba Greenwood, J.D. from Gallop Oncology 🎤 Jack O'Meara leading the fireside chat with Otello Stampacchia from Omega Funds 🎤 Yasmin Siraj interviewing Bharatt Chowrira at PureTech Health, Sutha Satkunarajah at Flagship Pioneering and Najat Khan, PhD at Recursion 💠 Thank you all for giving us your time to offer your wisdom! 💠 ps. This event is now incredibly oversubscribed but we'll be sharing some updates on LinkedIn about the next date for Q1 2025 so follow to stay in the loop. #LONDONBIO #Jefferies2024 #biotech #lifesciences #techbio #VC #FrontierTech #BioFounders

We're looking forward to seeing our biotech community at LONDON BIO tomorrow! Taking place alongside Jefferies Healthcare Conference 2024, we are leaning into our capital's history with Afternoon Tea onboard HMS Wellington for an iconic London experience. We're hearing from a stellar line up of founders, investors, pharma, academics, and ecosystem pillars: 💥 Emma Tinsley in discussion with Anta Gkelou and Luba Greenwood, J.D. 💥 Jack O'Meara fireside chat with Otello Stampacchia 💥 Yasmin Siraj interviewing Bharatt Chowrira, Sutha Satkunarajah and Najat Khan, PhD It's going to be our best edition yet! We are totally oversubscribed so unfortunately are no longer able to accept new registrations. But if you'd like to sign up to be in the know for the future - Q1 2025 for the next one - please do: https://lnkd.in/ewGgfnax And with thanks to our partners Amazon Web Services (AWS) Canary Wharf Group Kadans Science Partner Meru Advisors Hlx Life Sciences JonesTrading Morgan, Lewis & Bockius LLP 🙌

Slush is around the corner and checking in with Elin Dölker this morning I can say the whole BACKED Clan is excited to land on Monday! If you're in Helsinki, follow along for updates. ❄️ Today, we're shining the spotlight on Amazon Web Services (AWS) who are helping us deliver our Slush events: "The AWS Startups team have been working closely with Backed to support the most exciting startups in Techbio, Fintech and beyond. We’re excited to be cohosting the LP Opening Reception and the BACKED Party at Slush where the best of EMEA startups come together." With thanks to Kosten Metreweli, Patricia Suhrcke and the whole AWS Startup team who support our portfolio. 💯

Congratulations to Jeremy Pinto and Benjamin Cohen Aloro and the whole JUST team! 🙌 💥 Andre de Haes shared that at BACKED "We are delighted to be partnering with the team at JUST who are delivering some of the strongest conversion and share of wallet metrics we have seen in the space. Jérémy and Benjamin have an unbelievable energy and customer centricity that sets them apart in our eyes." #TechNews #FrontierTech #FundingAnnouncement #Frenchstartup #EuropeanExpansion

Next up, our friends at Carta! Stalwart supporters of BACKED over the years, especially at Slush and this year is bigger than ever (if you're coming to the BACKED Party you'll see why!) 💥 With thanks in particular to Hugo de Stacpoole who shared why we partner together year on year: "We are hugely excited to be heading back to Slush and bracing the cold, alongside our fantastic partner Backed VC where we will be sponsoring their LP reception and the infamous BACKED party. We are looking forward to fostering great connections with investors, founders and our partners alike." 💥 And why Carta I hear you say? Trusted by 7,000+ funds representing $130B in assets under administration, Carta is one of the world's largest VC fund administrators. Backed by over 300 fund accountants, our tech-enabled platform automates your back-office with solutions from capital calls, to taxes, to closing, allowing fund managers to focus on what really matters, finding the next unicorn and building investor relationships. Carta is the leading provider of equity management and venture capital solutions that underpin the multi-trillion-dollar private market ecosystem. Carta’s platform manages nearly three trillion dollars in equity for over two million people globally. Get in touch with their team attending Slush to get ahead: Hugo, Edwin Chan, ACA, Remy Astie, Nicholas Richards, Chris Turner. #Slush24 #TheBACKEDParty #PartnershipSuccess