KQ Labs

Yesterday we held our last #TechBioBoost workshop in collaboration with KQ Labs on 📍#US and international market entry and commercialisation Attendees explored strategies for entering the US and international markets, with expert insights and engaging discussions ⤵️ 👉 Kate Merton (Health Equity Innovation Partners) provided a comprehensive overview of the US #Healthcare landscape, helping attendees map out opportunities in this complex market. 👉 Jack Conway and Bill Lindsay (Department for Business and Trade) shared valuable perspectives on the US investment landscape, helping companies navigate funding opportunities abroad. 👉 A thought-provoking fireside chat featuring Barbara Domayne-Hayman (KQ Labs), Michael Young (Lindus Health) and Tim Fell (Kinomica), who unpacked the scaling challenges—sharing the good, the bad, and the lessons learned along the way. A huge thank you to our event host Bird & Bird and programme managers, Jane Wall, Barbara Domayne-Hayman, and Emma Fox for their work on the programme 👏 🚀 #TechBio #Innovation #LifeSciences #Commercialisation

Big news! We're thrilled to announce our £6M Series A investment round! Led by Par Equity, and joined by Mercia Ventures, British Business Bank North of England (Northern Powerhouse Investment Fund I), Octopus Ventures, Calm/Storm, Conduit Connect, and our angel investors. This funding is a huge milestone in our mission to change the future of paediatric care through personalised preparation and psychological support for families. This investment enables us to scale our global operations and continue innovating our platform to support even more children, families, clinical trials, and hospitals ✨ A massive thank you to our investors, partners, and the families who inspire us daily. Together, we’re building a brighter, healthier future for children across the globe. Learn more about what's next for Little Journey Read the full press release in the comments 📖 #SeriesA #Paediatrics #Pediatric #HealthTech #Innovation

🚀 What's going on in TechBio investment news? 🎉 Big shoutout to BioIndustry Association (BIA) and the The Francis Crick Institute's KQ Labs for hosting the #TechBioBoost event yesterday. Some of the biggest names in the UK investment ecosystem came together to share insights into the future of TechBio. 💡 Chair: Rebecca Todd @ Longwall Venture Partners LLP (Focussed on venture building for deep tech startups.) Panel: Sonal Pai @ First Spark Ventures. (Eric Schmidt backed, pre-seed/seed. Hardware, biotech, platform and drugs. Sweet spot of £3m-£10m and follow on until Series B.) Julia Hawkins @ LocalGlobe and Latitude. ($200m fund pre-seed/seed. Health and Tech. Latitute invests at Series B.) Perman Jorayev, Ph.D. @ Amadeus Capital Partners, (backs DeepTech with strong IP, $1Bn AUM, £1-5m pre-seed to Series A.) Jonathan Tobin @ Brandon Capital. (1.5Bn AUM. Drugs, diagnostics, health, animals. 50% funds are being deployed in EU.) Oliver Hardick @ M Ventures (German Merck backed, financial and strategic investors. £1-10m tickets but mainly Series A. They need strong data.) 💫 My favourite bits: 🏥 There's been a shift in acquisition focus as Pharma are now more risk averse, acquiring post phase 2 trials. 10 years ago pre-clinical candidates or phase 1/1b. This has changed how investors strategise. 🤖 The costs of drug discovery since 2019 has doubled. AI needs more time to prove itself and we're now at the peak of the hype cycle of AI in drug discovery. There will be a period of normalisation and then productivity. Defined assets are key and focus needs to be on progressing these. ✨ TechBio funds are appearing with massive amounts of capital who can focus on both tech and clinical elements. These include visionary funds like Dimension and Lux Capital who want founders that are really shooting for the stars. However, many funds at the moment still focus either tech or drugs, especially smaller $200m EU funds who will tend to be asset focused fast followers. 💰The impact of biotech industry downturn post-Covid has impacted fund GP/LP relationships. Fund returns have been lower than expected, LPs are no longer satisfied with seeing TVPI "paper returns" (including LPs in the US) and there are cases where LPs now receive rights to co-invest direct into a startup and reduced GP management fees. 🤝 We had conflicting views from the panel on how tailored your pitch to a tech or drugs investor needs to be in the first interaction. With some panelists arguing that the focus and questions will be different and so more than one deck will be needed. Other panelists argued that since there needs to be investor alignment at the board level, it makes sense to use one narrative (and deck) from the first conversation. We're all learning as we go! Watch this space for more TechBio postings! #tech #techbio #ai #startups #drugdiscovery #aptamer #aptamers #oligos #generativeai #biotech #community #pharma #artificialintelligence #venturecapital PentaBind

We’re thrilled to welcome Toby Basey-Fisher, CEO of Entia, to discuss insights on strategic collaborations, cancer care, and investment opportunities 💰 #TechBioBoost KQ Labs

Great to have our panel of speakers at #TechBioBoost discussing the future of #AI in #TechBio ⬇ 📌 Jackie Hunter PhD DSc CBE FBPharmacolS FMedSci   📌 Sean Kendall, ARCH Venture Partners 📌 Prashant Shah, o2h group 📌 Inga D., Molten Ventures