right so welcome back in this next panel
features bio and Healthcare investors
from Andreessen Horowitz Coastal
adventures and Ben Rock are some of the
most respected firms out there so before
we bring them up on stage I wanted to
introduce you to our moderator Ethan
pearlstein so Ethan is a YC Alum and
he's a founder and CEO of perlara
perlara was the very first bio public
benefit Corporation they focus on
helping families find cures for rare
diseases he's also co-founder and CEO of
Maggie's Pearl which is a clinical stage
joint venture that is currently
sponsoring a phase three clinical trial
at the Mayo Clinic he is also an active
seed investor himself so I would like to
introduce Ethan Camille Vanita and
Morgan welcome
you can go next
all right welcome everybody
it's a pleasure to have this
responsibility to moderate this great
panel so everyone settled in here so I'd
like for our distinguished guests to
introduce themselves so maybe we'll just
start
um in the sequence here cami's sitting
next to me please go first
hi guys it's Cami Samuels and it's a
pleasure and an honor to be up here
talking to you
um I'm going to tell you a little bit
about myself as a human first a little
bit about benrock and then a little bit
about my approach to venture
as a human what I think is relevant is
first I grew up in New York City but
have lived in San Francisco forever and
I'm now died on the wall Californian but
I um I lost both my parents at a young
age to the biggies one cancer and one
heart disease I have a son with autism
and I myself have a rare disease so
Healthcare is deeply personal for me so
don't just look at what I say through
the lens of cynical Venture capitalists
please look at as someone who really
wants to get products to patients
um venerik has been around since the
late 1960s it's one of the original
Venture firms we have right now about 6
billion under management
um we were lucky enough to be a part of
some of the earliest companies in
biotech like biogenitech and Gilead and
then on through Illumina and 10x
genomics and so on
um and I feel like I'm very much
standing on the shoulders of giants
working at venarch I myself am most in
love with just complete medical needs so
I do a lot of Orphan disease investing
but just diseases for which there aren't
great therapies I major in Therapeutics
I minor in consumer health and in
medical devices
thank you and Vanita representing the
notorious a16z
thank you Ethan is waiting for how much
shade there would be on this panel from
Ethan
that was a compliment
um
well thank you all for having me thank
you Toby for inviting us all here to to
get to meet some of you
um my name is Vinnie tagarwal I'm one of
the investing Partners at Andresen
Horowitz part of our bio health fund
team and so similar to what you heard
sorbu describe for YC we love that
structure we love the idea of dedicated
teams and you know resources and and
people really to help great Founders in
the space like yourselves build
companies and in very special areas
um
I I'm a physician by background so I
echo echo what you said about
um being super super patient focused and
ultimately everything that um that we
back we hope has a transformative impact
on patient lives
um and we share a lot of the DNA that YC
brings to you all
um and that you know for both
prospective and current YC Founders our
our firm was founded by technical
Founders that's that's our mission as
well um and so it's it's really exciting
to be here and we look forward to to
working together
and Alex hi thank you uh also for having
me and it's nice to see a lot of my
portfolio companies or our firms
portfolio companies in the audience
including some that have already exited
which is fantastic
um The Firm because of Interest as
probably many of you know broadly
invests in everything from consumer
Technologies consumer food Tech things
like impossible Foods all the way
through to aerospace companies like
rocket lab but also companies like
doordash and git lab and all kinds of
things but I lead our health and
bioinvesting practice and for us that's
everything from Healthcare Services AI
Radiology
drug Discovery platforms deployed
Healthcare digital health and some
devices and I'm by personal background
originally a physician scientist I was
an AI researcher and then kind of moved
into biomedicine but I've been at coast
of interest for seven years now
fantastic so let's Dive Right In and
we'll just sort of continue that order
maybe Cami Vanita Alex as we go through
these questions and if you have nothing
to add or
um we can we can of course you don't
have to speak uh we can go uh to the
next person then go to the next question
so first uh first up so what do you look
for in an early stage deal anything
specific about the entrepreneur the
company itself uh do you have a certain
investment thesis
sure so I already hinted about unread
medical need I don't
early stage technical Founders tend to
um
emphasize near-term risk and
de-emphasize long-term risks I don't
love investing in a big commercial scrum
15 years from now right so
um so I'd rather take on a meaty
technical risk
um looking to de-risk it relatively
early in the investment cycle
um I you know everyone says they
backgrade people big markets
um orthogonal and hard technology
on the people side one I want to say
something like vague that may be
unexpected truth seeking is a quality I
look for in entrepreneurs
um and it emerges often in the first and
second meeting and what I mean by that
is
um nothing's perfect your deal
inevitably has warts
um are you seeing them trying to address
them admitting that you don't know how
to address it looking for help
um all that because if you are trying to
shove it under the rug which is a
natural human instinct then I won't be
able to help you and I'm worried about
the the risks that we're not identifying
um so that's a quality that you may not
hear about all the time that means a lot
to me as an investor
um my very first investment at
Andreessen Horowitz was in a YC company
I think Mana was here somewhere but I
invested in memora health and I often
look back to
um to the founder of qualities to your
question Ethan that that got us excited
about an investment like that and we
often talk about
um a sort of a Trope Adventure but maybe
you've heard it before and I thought
maybe it'd be helpful to explain which
is something called the idea Maze and I
think it might it sort of it gets used
in this way without people describing
what it means and it sounds it sounds
um you know confusing but really it's
it's we like to figure out can we be on
an intellectual Journey with someone and
what does that feel like and at the
earliest stages of company building
most of what you think is going to
happen is not going to happen and I
think that's just important to be as
Cami said honest about and upfront about
and
be okay with actually it's really
important for us to know that a Founder
is okay if hypothesis X didn't work out
because we don't expect it to work out
either all the time sometimes it does
sometimes you know I think you heard a
phenomenal story from the Asher bio
Founders and Ivana told just a beautiful
story of some things really working out
as intended with really great plans but
that doesn't always happen and so if it
doesn't happen we like asking questions
about you know what if what if this
doesn't happen what if this customer
doesn't bite what if this science
doesn't pan out what if you know you
spend this much capital on on this
experiment what would you do next as
your next experiment these are all
questions that we we call navigating the
idea Maze and a lot of that is
intellectual horsepower but a lot of it
is personality and your willingness to
be collaborative with with an investor
and and bring us along for the ride
right you're always going to know more
about your science and your space and
your technology than we ever will but we
want to be able to to share a little bit
of what we've learned from pattern
matching across a lot of companies and
Founders and from time to time that's a
journey that we think will be fun to
take together and so
um I think that's actually probably the
number one thing I look for is is do I
feel like it would be really fun to
navigate the company building Journey
with you
so I think it means Cami said first most
everyone would say that I've been
principle everyone's looking for a
strong differentiated team you know are
the is this the best possible team
working for this problem is there fit to
purpose you know is this a big enough
market opportunity because it's big
enough market opportunity you can screw
up a little bit which is great for an
early stage company and still find your
place if you if it's a narrow
opportunity where you really have to
thread many needles to get there that
can be hard
um
but I think one of the things that may
be worth just jumping to I think maybe
the elephant in the room that was sort
of alluded to in the in the partnering
session is that I think more than ever
there especially for an early stage deep
tech company there is a lot of future
financing risk and as I'm looking at
companies now one of the big questions I
have is where what do I think about the
future financing risk of this company
and a lot of that hinges on something
vanilla and Kimmy both were kind of
talking about is does this company have
full clarity into my into our weaknesses
and is very intellectually honest about
the the this process that I'm gonna you
know that that I as an entrepreneur and
my team are going to have to navigate
um and not have unrealistic expectations
you I hear a lot of companies and you
know many of you in the audience here a
few times I've heard talk about how
everything in your company is great the
team you have in per in places the exact
one you'll ever need
it's not true in most cases right I mean
you're you're going to evolve your
company and you have to know what the
holes are what your weaknesses are and
lean into them otherwise it's very hard
to address them and you know other
things that I also look for especially
in this environment where you're going
to need a very strong team to navigate
the the journey ahead is we'll often see
teams say oh I just need to hire a
couple texts so I don't need a big
option pool
that's I don't think the right way to
frame an early stage company that it
needs to bring on excellent Talent so
success as an early stage company is a
consolidation of amazing talent trying
to do the impossible and you really are
about consolidating that group to
overcome the challenge you have because
in an early stage company you're half
baked or even like one-tenth baked so
you can't assume that everything's
perfect
can I just build on that Ethan sorry
please um
so part of this truth seeking is
accepting the financing environment that
you're in and having the mental fluidity
to adjust right so for call it five
years we've been in the land of
bacchanalia and the right business model
might have been to boil the ocean
today people need to see you make
progress typically towards the clinic
with at least one program that folks
understand where it lives
um and obviously that's a therapeutic
specific example but breadth versus
depth is a real trade-off you have to
make and the right business model also
has to fit the right moment you may I'm
not asking you we're not asking you to
eliminate all your dreams you just may
need to step what in a stepwise fashion
wait until your evaluations higher I.E
the capital is cheaper until you do
everything you want to do and that's an
example of
um of something we're looking to see
that you're sort of your antenna are up
you've adjusted and again dream all you
want I want a dream right there with you
but also adjust
so yeah I'm glad you brought this up
because I was going to get to this the
question of the current funding climate
I'm sure there are folks who are
fundraising or have been fundraising
since the early when sort of the music
stopped earlier the year so do you want
to amplify anything on that point about
what entrepreneurs should be thinking
about it to survive this this winter
um you want to continue and then we'll
go to oh yeah so um I actually had an
associate come sit in my room depressed
on Monday so a young guy who thought he
was gonna like make his first investment
last week and and you know make partner
next year
um and he was just so bummed about the
environment that he's in and I honestly
started my Venture career a long time
ago in a first in a boom that went into
a downturn within a year
um and I actually think it's it's you
know you've heard the the Trope that
what the best companies are created
during a downturn I actually think
um there's a risk that we as VCS or we
as entrepreneurs act like Pally High
School adolescence if we only live in
great times and and learning that not
everybody has a Tesla at 16 is actually
a really good thing
um so you do have to be clever so
strategics might become more important
you know strategies about making choices
one of my my Saucy sayings is last time
I checked it wasn't
luxury is the motherhood of invention it
was necessity so so take take this
moment and say all right this is what
makes for the difference between a good
entrepreneur and a not so good
entrepreneur is figuring it out so maybe
it's you know waiting for three years to
work on a third program or maybe it's
um as Ivana said you know doing that
animal model a little on the come
because it'll validate us for the next
investing round whatever it is but show
progress and if you need to partner one
of your babies and all your drugs will
feel like babies they do to me as well
you might have to
I think I would Echo what Alex said is
just be thinking ahead about the next
rounds one of the things that's
challenging in this environment is that
pre-seed seed has not corrected as much
as a and b and I just think that's a
harsh reality that we all have to figure
out together everyone on this panel
actually does a lot of seed investing
something like 70 of the dollars that we
invest out of the bio health fund at
a16z is actually first money in so it's
not like we're not right there with you
at that point your seed investors are in
the same boat as you and you have to
figure out how to navigate the future
financings together
um but the correction is different at
different stages and so that's just
something that you know I think
work with investors that you know just
as you're they're picking you you're
picking them and hopefully you know you
can navigate that collaboratively as you
move forward but it's never been more
important to at the time of your seed
financing be working backwards from your
series a financing and at every step of
the way have that kind of a that kind of
an approach to it that's not to say
you know sometimes you're you know
sometimes you might be discharging
something that feels like existential
risk on the seat and that's why you know
you got you're really fortunate to have
people betting on you at that stage and
you may think well I just can't predict
past that you know I don't know if this
is going to work if it doesn't work I
might have to do a 180 sure but try to
think through okay if this does work
here's where we're headed next here's
what we'd have to fundraise to I often
tell seed Founders to make their series
a deck have it be empty slides but use
it as a way to Think Through what
Milestones are going to be really
attractive to a series a investor and
record some of the feedback you heard
from multi-stage funds and funds that
could be investor Partners For You at
Future stages
Alex any thought about the downturn or
the current climate uh yeah I mean we
could keep talking to it but maybe we
won't talk about something more
uplifting for a second yeah yeah so
we'll maybe we'll do a little twist here
all doom and gloom yeah I don't know
okay no no more Doom and Gloom so YC's
always YC always tells their Founders
not to get too discouraged by no's from
investors that investors make mistakes
can you tell us about a miss that you've
had
I'm going to tell one that's really in
the venrock family so um
I did a lot of work on investment on a
company called avexis
um I was doing it supporting uh one of
my late stage Investment Partners bonco
and avexis ultimately got acquired by
Novartis for I think it was nine billion
dollars and um
and the round that bong invested in it
was the First Institutional round but
Roche had gone in there prior so it was
the first VC round was like at 120
million pre so I did a bunch of work on
it it had a cop from Long Island as its
CEO and it had twin sisters doing all
the sort of RA work and that was it so
it violated sort of every stereotype of
like what VCS are supposed to invest in
and so I ended up kind of copping out
and being like too expensive doesn't
have the right CEO not going to invest
now I got Carrie in the public fund
because I helped doing the work but I
didn't put the early stage funds money
in it saying it was too expensive and it
ended up being a really nice outcome and
I will have to say so the disease SMA
kills children at 14 months old and they
have before and after videos for avexis
and there's not a dry eye in the house
so here I am the person who wants to
really make an impact on on kids in
particular and I miss the boat
there are too many any any honest
investor will tell you there are too
many misses to name like a no does not
mean that it was kind of the most
thought out
correct answer they empirically are like
it has to be false right that most of
the nose
um are false because many of you will
succeed in extraordinary ways so that's
just I think the spirit behind your
question was you know how do I interpret
a no and it absolutely basically doesn't
the binary doesn't mean much I think
what's worth paying attention to are you
know people's thoughts on what made them
hesitate and what might be actionable
advice even that I would say a lot of it
is probably not actionable because again
we don't understand your businesses as
well as you do
um I'll give um I won't say I didn't
tell Serbia I would tell her about this
but I don't know I would say this but I
missed sorby's first couple of
financings at her company
um it was a phenomenal Med device
product I was super excited about it so
we passed all the idea maze tests and
everything that one could possibly put
into put into a diligence process but at
the time our fund I was at another fund
and we didn't do my device and so
sometimes just remember that your
investors have certain mandates with
their LPS and certain you know kind of
areas in which they plan to or you know
think that they want to invest and it
might just not align with where you are
but sometimes that can still mean that
you become friends with them and spend
and you know and hopefully work together
in lots of ways so I think um that's it
is I think that's a good example of um
where keeping in touch can can really be
great from at a personal level even if
you connect with folks who get to a node
don't take that grudgingly just
recognize that they have some of their
own constraints and then another example
I'll share since I'm on a panel with
Alex is a DNA sequencing company called
Ultima that costla was in very very
early
I finally after many years of trying to
invest in this company
we came in Via our growth fund at
Andreessen Horowitz we're incredibly
excited to back the company but you know
that was a really really different
technology and so I think you can't
expect every investor at every stage to
get it and be right there with you on
seeing the potential for a technology in
the DNA sequencing space in particular
there are a lot of what investors call
dead bodies there are a lot of companies
that didn't make it and so having
awareness about why that is the case
having an explanation for why that might
be the case and why you might be
different what your unfair advantages
can really help combat the biases that
some investors will bring you know to
those decisions and guilty myself of
having those biases see it happens to
the best of us Alex
it was like one that did I think is
strikes all I always think about is
recursion because we saw that right when
it was coming out in the seed stage was
right in my Strike Zone thought it was
very interesting easy for me to evaluate
one that I knew you know the space
really well
but my partners really had had poor
experiences building complex companies
like that in in let's say unusual
ecosystems and there was a lot of
skepticism that they would bring in the
you know the there also there was like
even more even though I think now that
the fight for AI Talent is hard there
were just fewer people coming out of
school and everything at a time so would
they get the AI talent that they needed
and the biopharma talent to move to Salt
Lake City and that was the reason we
passed and I've sort of like I think I
was maybe too weak willed or something
to fight against my partners and say yes
I think they can do it and now in a
post-covered world I think it would be
it's a little silly to think you could
only build companies in certain areas
but at the time there was a lot of bias
uh on and that was that was something
that was going to require a lot of
on-prem in the dev huge facility now so
that's one I was just looking in my
email and our notes on Asher and vinod
Coastal and I are emailing back when it
was a YC company I guess in the whatever
batch in 19 and we were both like this
looks really interesting even though I
was like yeah I could easily be a one on
this it seems really cool and there's a
lot back and forth like well there's a
lot of activity in the space we are not
experts in the area that they're doing
but there are you know we did a little
quick background of how many companies
and how many drugs there were in the
space we don't know enough to feel
confident we're not the ones to be the
we didn't feel like this was an area of
our expertise and you know so we missed
out I guess the company seems like it's
doing great it's a good company
awesome so let's now go from the other
tax so when you get really excited about
a company can you share with us uh what
happens behind the scenes a little what
happens in those Monday partner meetings
um can you talk about diligence process
or how how do you engage your
partnership when you're trying to uh
when you're the one who's sort of
bringing the deal to the to the
partnership
do you want to start this time I feel
yeah you're always less
no um
I guess you know one important thing to
remember of course is it varies if you
do different stages investing or
different types of investing it can
actually vary tremendously so you know
many of the early stage coming right out
of YC companies raising a couple million
dollars in an area that we already feel
like we know something or we're just
kind of doing a small seed investment
that can be a very quick decision-making
process
all the way through to we have specs
induced back mergers and 250 million
dollar deals which as you may imagine
requires a lot of work uh over a month
sometimes so there's a huge spectrum and
there are also different styles of
companies so deep tech companies where
we have to do a lot of Ip work that is a
whole different process and we actually
recently hired a full-time
jdmd IP attorney to help us due
diligence in particularly bio bio and
healthcare related IP questions so it I
want to give you a
it's hard for me to give a simple answer
because there's so many different styles
of companies that require different
kinds of questions and like I said an
early seed Stage Company there's often
not a whole lot of their due diligence
and it may just be we have some thoughts
about the founders and roughly the
problem they're working on all the way
through to like very serious metrics
about you know very subcohort analysis
in particular growth in different
markets and time to pay back in
different kind of capex Investments that
take a lot longer
no I'm just gonna say I agree that
there's dramatic diversity in the
in the process I think um most Venture
Partnerships even though they seem large
like ultimately you're going to converge
on one or two people who are going to
spend the most time with you and
um and and really kind of ultimately
advocate for an investment and you know
I think sometimes Venture Partnerships
feel large or you feel like you have to
convince a lot of people or at a partner
meeting you're worried you didn't get in
front of everybody this is a human
business like ultimately you're gonna
get to know a couple of people who
Shepherd you through and to whom you
should be able to ask
um questions and they'll ask you back
questions and so I think that's just one
thing I'll point out is that partner
meetings at at most of our funds are an
opportunity for us to collect input from
our full partnership But ultimately it's
always going to be one or two people who
hopefully go deep with you on on the
idea that you're bringing to the table
for me the biggest thing I look for at
seed stage
um
uh is what to the discussion before kind
of plan for the next fundraise
ironically enough
um it's a question that comes up across
our partnership very very early and
um and sort of unfair Advantage right
like a simple answer to the question why
is this company unfairly positioned to
win in the space that they're talking
about going after sometimes that can be
as simple as the people and sometimes
it's something really really technical
it's a creative assay that they've
invented it's the ability to do more
with less capital and Screen something
screen a very large space for example to
to learn some SAR insights in a very
short amount of time but I gotta have a
quick answer actually to that question
um to feel comfortable at seed stage
it's like why do you want to be
president you have to know that one is
there everything we do is geeky Tech I
don't say deep Tech I just say geeky so
when even on the tech side
um all of our companies are geeky
um so we generally don't participate in
the like consumer VC one week to term
sheet process
um and um so we we tend to take two two
to three months getting to know a
company I'm sorry I know that sucks but
we do
um and there are just a one or two or at
most three people doing deep diligence
um and then the process at venerac I
can't hide behind my partners when I
pass because I could be the only person
in the partnership that loves the deal
and I could do it so some I prior to
venark I was a managing director at
verse inventures and at Versant it was a
group decision
um I could do and we have actually had
really nice outcome deals where the rest
of the firm functionally vomited on it
so
um so ever M has its own culture and
style Venture firms
are like marriages you have no idea
what's going on inside them unless
you're inside them
um so
expect a different process in each firm
if you've got a deep Tech most of you do
um it's not going to be an overnight
process and particularly in a financing
environment like this
all right maybe let's get uh let's
return to the Saucy questions so
um where do you I'll make it sauce even
if it's not done okay where do you
situate yourself on the biotech Tech bio
Continuum
um and you could reject the Assumption
or the premise of the question
um but I know that you know this is a
the founder led by a movement or the
tech bow movement is this is marketing
itself and branding itself is different
from biotech so I guess how do you see
yourself in this we should we should ask
you to answer that one first
or do I see you guys
I need a definition
oh boy it's like a spelling bee may I
have the definition please well we know
what biotech means right I guess right
traditional life science investors do we
do we agree on what that means and
that's you know that's you know biotech
is shorthand for that
um and I guess Tech bio is I don't
really know biotech include genomics
sure okay so tools tools are in biotech
in your mind different people don't
include I do not just I'm not just I'm
not just a therapeutic snob yeah
and then Tech biotech means I mean Ai
and biotech again that's definitely a
strain I mean I I identify more with the
operational side of it like it's it's
more about the founder-led and the
profile like the the PG thesis but but
yeah I mean I know it means I don't want
to get into a whole debate about AIML
but yeah so so my sense is that there
are a lot of things that have been
confounded in these spectrums of
founder-led not founder-led Tech bio
biotech like at the end of the day I
think you know sorby said it well on on
her in her discussion you know these are
all of the companies in this space do
Converge on a very special regulatory
pathway and a very special set of
constraints that
that the world uses at some level to
decide whether or not the thing is
working
um and so as a result my feeling is I
reject the dichotomy I humbly reject the
dichotomy I mean I think you know
Founders are important for every company
show me a company where the founder
didn't matter the founder could be a
senior management you know executive or
the founder could be somebody who just
finished their PHD in a lab we've got
we've got all in our portfolio and they
always have CEOs the one thing that's
clear is that the founder always matters
um and so I think that's a that's a
shared theme I think you know kind of
um someone mentioned the great blog post
on you know YYC bio and what might be
different about funding biotech
companies in a more Tech way and that
references potentially a lower amount of
capital required to stand up a company I
think that's interesting right there
that there's something to that and I
think some companies will have a certain
set of achievements maybe that are
possible that our Tech enabled old that
may be more Capital efficient than a
traditional biotech regime maybe maybe
others won't that are still really
exciting companies working towards
Therapeutics Daphne Kohler in our
portfolio often says you know
machine learning
is going to become something like a
computer it will be impossible to say
I'm a company and I like refuse to use
the Technologies and the tools that are
available and like that's how I feel
about technology that doesn't have to be
your the first three words of your pitch
but it'd be kind of crazy if you refused
to apply novel analytic regimes to the
data you were collecting and that's why
every large Pharma company is talking
about that too so
so I reject
noted
Cami yeah I
I think his
additional biotech BC put a little too
much emphasis on experience in hiring
CEOs and maybe that's why you create
that dichotomy but we we are known for
founder CEOs as an example even though
and then you know we were the First
Investors in aluminum of this long
history in doing so I think that as long
as genomics and tools are under biotech
and don't shoot the messenger we're deep
in healthcare I.T as well right then
honestly the what we're looking for and
how we support these companies in any
way we can looks exactly the same
any thoughts Alex or Pluto a planet I
don't know
um is it 800 million dollar Arch LED
initial financing a seed round you know
some of these things it took very hard I
mean we were investing in fundamentals
and companies and the team in place and
the market they're in it is by the way I
do think what is AI is a whole other
separate like thing
um I do think it is important it is
actually although let me step back it is
pretty important I think where it's most
important is in the later stages when
you're dealing with investment bankers
and analysts and they're trying to put
you into sector buckets and there are
some very substantial differences and
very important branding that you may
want for your company at that stage more
so than now at the seed stage and you're
what you think your company is and what
brand you use for it now may evolve and
you may you may have strategic reasons
for how you position your company three
or four years from now when you are
trying to talk to invest in bankers and
they're going to put you in a report and
try to look for comps in your sector
here then it's actually pretty I think
it's more important than it is probably
now
maybe I don't know I guess do you agree
all right keep going keep going I see
I think um
how you describe yourself should even if
you're in deep Tech should speak to
investors hearts not just their minds
and you need to Journey Through the gunk
of understanding what your business is
and get to the Simplicity on the other
side of complexity and it may change
right so you may Define yourself as an
AI company today and by the time you go
public
you may be an Immunology company
but to the extent that investors are
lazy and many of us are it's helpful to
be able to categorize you
so maybe we can go back to just some
brass tax fundraising questions so given
the current climate or looking ahead
what are the sort of Milestones you're
looking for for a seed Stage Company and
for the a round for the B and you don't
all have to answer uh one of the things
you can kind of consolidate the the
current zeitgeist
I'll tell you what we look for in our
companies when we build them
um if it's a Therapeutics company we
look for usually de-risking on whatever
the key risk is because it might our
companies are usually platform
Therapeutics companies
um we usually look for some animal data
even if this isn't the final drug that's
going to go into patients
ideally we get to development candidate
but that's rare but the most important
thing is my ass will be in your
conference room on a whiteboard helping
you prioritize indications because we
really want you to to not only be
boiling the ocean but figure out how
you're going to apply it
um in our Healthcare I.T companies and
genomics companies it's a little bit
there's a little bit of nuance on that
there's usually one fundamental risk
that we need to de-risk in healthcare it
maybe we need a payer customer already
yeah I think the round sizes are so
variable that it's hard now to to say
what a seed A or B Milestone
specifically is but I think the mindset
that I'd encourage is that every round
is about discharging risk risk is you
know inversely proportional to price and
that's just how that's how fundraising
that's the momentum and that's the wheel
of fundraising is that every single
round you have to be laser focused on
discharging some risk that risk could be
that that you can hire somebody
um that risk could be something about
your technology but every single round
that's kind of the steady March then
drum beat that I find it's really
helpful if Founders are are very acutely
aware of
um
you know I'll give you an example we
invested in scribe Therapeutics a really
phenomenal founder who came out of
Jennifer doudna's lab Ben Oaks and he
started the company in his last year of
grad school
um and so at the time it was it was just
him right so the first round of
financing a big risk that he discharged
was can he stand up a company can he
hire people who know more than he does
about building a therapeutic and can he
validate the core enzyme that he built
he ultimately is building a company
around the next round of financing
required more de-risking can you deliver
that thing can you get to in Vivo data
can you get to you know all these other
proof points but
a steady March towards you know risk uh
discharging
um helps you raise future rounds
yeah I think that's the most important
thing for you all to think about is what
is your value-creating Milestone and
also
clear ownership in your own mind that
you own the value creating step right
that it's that there is a something that
you're trying to achieve and it is
sometimes nice in very early seed if
there is a clear failure point because
if it's a federal Point you're like okay
let's let's just Embrace that go and do
something else and not kind of be stuck
on this path where things haven't quite
failed but they aren't quite succeeding
that's sort of the most painful place to
be in so last question everyone says
they're a platform company what truly
defines a platform in an era when new
modalities are being discovered
seemingly at an Ever fast rate I mean
it's not just David Lu's lab that is
publishing a new thing every week in
nature like that just seems to be that's
just a secular Trend so maybe we'll
leave with that maybe more philosophical
question
and anyone this is now the free-for-all
round
all right sure I'll start so I have a
lot of empathy for kind of this feeling
that you almost get penalized once your
platform lays an egg and so I just want
to acknowledge that I think it's a
spectrum and it's hard to know exactly
what is a platform versus a product
company and the whole point of a
platform company is to make products and
you know but what if you found a product
that was too good to to leave on the
table but it didn't come exactly from
your platform and so I just think this
goes but for me it goes back to that
idea maze help us understand if you do
have a product how you get to the next
product if you don't have a product how
does your platform help you get to that
first product
um help us understand what what your
special sauce is is it Target
identification is it uncovering new
biology is it creating a modality with a
novel mechanism of action gosh there's a
really few of those how many therapies
do we all know of that have a completely
novel mechanism of action any of that
you know I think we have a pretty loose
definition of a platform
um as long as we can see line of sight
to what comes after the first product
you choose to prosecute
I've also made money in a platform and a
product so I've had lots of wonderful
exits most recently in a company
corvidia that sold to Novo on you know
we we had some backup programs and so on
but it was fundamentally one product
that was just doing something important
my I generally do Platform companies but
I don't exclusively do it I try not to
bring religious fervor to any of my
decision making
one one last sorry Alex I'm going to say
one last thing which is I think
hypothetically the reason investors will
often tell you they like platforms is
that the cost to stand up a second
program should in principle be lower
than the cost of that first program
whether that's for Target Discovery or
for modality design or for clinical
studies exactly and so I don't know if
that is always empirically the case but
if you can make a really good argument
to that effect that is the underlying
reason people have been attracted to
platforms historical it's a little bit
like in the healthcare world you know a
CAC argument like once you get your
first is it going to cost more or less
to get to acquire your next customers
it's sort of a similar thought process
as to why
why investors like Platforms in in
principle all right final word to you
Alex oh just well there's a Continuum of
how platforming you are right and I like
to look at companies on that Spectrum
you know if you are fully like you're an
anybody Discovery platform right you
just how how productive or how much
output can your platform deliver or are
you really when you actually they call
it a platform you really have a stack
rank list of discoveries and the top few
are really good and everything below
that is Gunk that's not it's kind of on
the platformy Spectrum that's sort of
not so platformy so there's a Continuum
and it is nice to have optionality
especially in this market if you can do
provide lots of value without taking on
lots of risk binary risk with a
particular clinical program let's say
that's a good position to be in
all right let's congratulate these VCS
see what I did there
[Applause]