Nadin Youssef 00:03
I thank you so much for being here with us this morning. Everyone, as most of you know, this panel will be around tech transfer, how to avoid the sort of pitfalls of many companies that have spun out from the Technology Transfer offices or academic spin-outs or other research organizations. With us today is a great panel of experts that I'd love to invite to introduce themselves. Let's start with you, Pablo, you're very well surrounded today.
Pablo Prieto 00:34
Yes, I am. Thank you very much for the invite. I'm Pablo Prieto. I manage an early-stage fund based in Barcelona called CG Health Ventures. We're a family office-backed fund that invests both in Europe and in the US, mostly in health tech and digital.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 00:52
Thank you, everyone, for being here. I'm Beatriz Volckaert Almansa, part of the Philips Ventures team, the venture arm of Philips. We invest mainly in med tech and digital health companies that are aligned with our business unit, which ranges from consumer health-oriented products to precision diagnosis, imaging, monitoring, or anthropocentric informatics. It's our pleasure to be here. Thank you.
Gina Melchner 01:16
Hi everyone. I'm Gina Melchner, and I'm a venture partner with NLC Health Ventures. Now, for those of you who don't know NLC, let me just say we're not a venture capital fund. We're actually a venture builder, a venture studio, as it's often called, meaning we're the founder or co-founder in all of our ventures and work very closely with the tech transfer offices, which is, of course, why I'm hoping to share some experience with you today.
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 01:41
Thank you. My name is Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky. I'm here as part of Oxford Science Enterprises. We're an independent $1 billion fund structured as an investment company. We work very closely with the tech transfer office at Oxford University. We have a unique partnership with them, where we get an early look into the exciting innovation that's happening within Oxford.
Nadin Youssef 02:06
Amazing. Thank you, everyone. I'm Nadin Youssef. I'm a senior analyst at Nina Capital. We are an early-stage venture capital fund specializing in health tech, and we're based in Barcelona. But of course, we have quite a global mission and perspective as well. Amazing. Gina, I'd love to start with you, given your background. What have you seen as the sort of key attributes that you look for when you're first engaging with these tech transfer offices and they're sort of introducing you to these commercial opportunities that could be possible? So, you know, what are those key attributes that you're looking for?
Gina Melchner 02:46
So this is an interesting one because we, of course, look at a lot of things throughout our due diligence process, but the first thing I'd look at is always, is there a need? And this is something that we see a lot working with tech coming out of academia, is that a lot of it is really based more on tech push. Definitely not all of it. There's a lot of good stuff out there that is really starting with the problem and solving for that, but we do see tech push. So technologies that are brilliant tech but not always aligned with the problem that we actually see in the market. So that's something that I put a lot of focus on in the beginning.
Nadin Youssef 03:24
Okay, and how about you, Beatriz, in terms of, you know, coming from Philips Ventures and coming from the sort of more corporate side, when you've had the chance to look at these types of commercial opportunities, what are the key attributes that you're looking for from your end?
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 03:45
I would say that it's essential to understand what the current technology cannot solve nowadays and what the solution can provide to hospitals and to patients. Sometimes those technologies need to be looked at from the needs and, you know, try to see how the final customer will be willing to adopt it, why a physician would like to change their current practice and their standard of care. The most successful companies are the ones that are changing the dynamics of the market. So I would say focusing on the needs and who will be adopting these technologies is essential. And, of course, another thing that for all of us is essential is that the team is balanced, that you have the great know-how internally, the domain expertise, and that there's a successful management team to succeed.
Nadin Youssef 04:58
I think it's very interesting that you've touched on that team element, particularly from our perspective at Nina. I think we sometimes see a gap within these spin-outs or commercial opportunities that have spun out from these academic institutions in terms that they can sometimes be led by an academic, which then unfortunately creates a gap in the commercial sense. Gina, I'd love to ask you, you know, coming from your perspective at Oxford Science Enterprises, great ideas can sometimes get stuck in academia or in these institutions. How do you think this can be avoided?
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 05:37
Yeah, that's a great question. I think one of the ways that we try and avoid great ideas getting stuck within academia is by providing very early signposting to the academics within the university that we are not only separate from the tech transfer office, but we can help craft their vision and story into something that could be a company one day. So that's part of it. I think there's definitely an education process within academia that, you know, perhaps it's a bit of a legacy factor, that commercial is part of the dark side, and US investors are again part of the dark side. But it's really part of that education to encourage that if they would like that technology to reach scale and reach as many patients as possible, that we're really here to help facilitate that. And so we really work hard through those kinds of mechanisms to help.
Nadin Youssef 06:36
Just in light of that, how do you engage with investors? You mentioned the dark side. Do you feel that there's friction between these freshly spun-out companies and investors, or do you think that there's a way that they can both align?
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 06:56
I think it's key in what you said about aligning, right? I think it's all about putting our best foot forward and really promoting the strengths of what an investor can bring to the table. Touching on thinking about a founding team, for example, if we position ourselves and really have a knowledge-sharing exercise, we can demonstrate ourselves as great partners to help bolster the commercial parts of a business, acknowledging that they have that clinical side, and really just help think about building the company and the team together. So it's really trying to, I guess, dispel that perhaps legacy view of what investors might be.
Nadin Youssef 07:42
Okay, and I feel like we were sort of going through the negative end, but I also wanted to touch on how do investors, VCs, or other shapes and forms that they come in, benefit from these spin-outs or from engaging with these tech transfer offices? For me, I feel like there's a lot of horizon scanning, for example, that these investors could be benefiting from. But are there any other attributes that you think there's a reason that investors should always keep an eye out for in these types of companies or spin-outs? Pablo, let's go with you.
Pablo Prieto 08:25
So the most obvious one is that at least we share the vision with you that investing early can produce better returns. Not only that, you can get a lot of new technologies, which are, I'm going to say, almost like lateral thinking into existing problems. So I'm going to give an example. You know, someone that is innovating in a hospital will probably solve existing problems in hospitals, but if you're trying to solve future problems in hospitals that have not been material to that hospital right now, that innovation is likely to come from other places like academia. So that means that making the bet on someone who has that kind of talent and technology usually pays off big time. Yes, there is a big failure rate attached to this, but as investors, if you understand that kind of risk and adopt it inside your investment thesis, it can be very rewarding. You are at the forefront, as you were saying, the horizon of new problems. For us, that's very fulfilling, and it also meets the financial requirements that any fund has. So for me, when you get a company on Series B or Series C, where they already showed that they have some commercial traction, the product is almost finished, are they going to be solving a problem? Yes, most likely. Is it going to be a good investment? Yeah, most likely. But then, okay, I could be investing in commodities too, and public equity, but that's not what we like. I think every single fund has their taste. And for early-stage investors, we like the thrill of new technologies, as you were saying, and we like the thrill of having discussions about what the regulatory hurdles, the go-to-market hurdles, etc. That's my cup of tea, at least.
Nadin Youssef 10:16
Anyone else, perhaps more on the positive outcomes that could come from the engagement of these types of investors in the tech transfer offices or the spin-outs?
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 10:27
I mean, I think we're operating in a very tricky space, right? It's basically right in that valley of death. There's a lot of need in the early stage. We see a lot of players pulling out of the early stage. So I think it's more important than ever that we really collaborate in the ecosystem and make sure that we're bridging those gaps. The tech transfer offices are a big part of that. I mean, they see so much innovation, and there's so much more out there that doesn't make it into startups, and I think we all have a role to play to really build that ecosystem.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 11:01
I think that the ecosystem is maturing quite a lot, right? Now we're seeing many tech transfers also not just focusing on getting the equity but trying to build their offices for success, right? And their comments for success, and, well, this has been transitioning from, and maybe copying from the US, right? But yeah, on a positive note.
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 11:31
Just picking up on that point, something that we've seen within the Oxford ecosystem that we've been really trying to help bolster is working closely with the tech transfer office for things like express licensing, so helping the process go a bit faster. So that helps not only the academics but also us on the investor side. So there are different mechanisms that can definitely help align everyone's interests.
Nadin Youssef 11:56
Do you think these are more frequent now, or do you feel like it's still somewhat traditional in the sense of, you know, Oxford perhaps being one step ahead of everyone else?
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 12:09
Well, perhaps, like one comment on other ecosystems, maybe. I don't know what you guys see.
Pablo Prieto 12:13
Well, I mean, we see a lot of diversity in the ecosystem, right? We work with tech transfer across Europe and in the US, and you have some that are very commercially minded, like Oxford, for example, like the Mayo Clinic, with whom we collaborate in the US. And then you see the other end of the spectrum, where it's really about the number of licensing deals and the bureaucratic process that's in place, and there's no real commercial sense and understanding of the startup scene, and that's difficult to deal with, but it's also an education piece on our part.
Nadin Youssef 12:46
Amazing. So just on that note, Gina, what do you think they should be doing differently to better the conditions of these commercial opportunities?
Gina Melchner 12:55
It's hard to say because it's a mentality thing, almost. You really need to get the right people connected that know how startups work and understand the commercial components. So as an example, we see a lot of tech transfer offices that want to charge large lump-sum payments to the startups for the IP, and in the fragile state the startups are in at the beginning, if they need to pay the university even a small amount of money, it makes it that much harder for them to find investment in time. It's not beneficial to the university in the long run either because the startups might not make it.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 13:38
I mean, for people in the tech transfer industry, the Cohen-Boyer patents way back then for monoclonal antibodies are the prime example of why you shouldn't squeeze too hard, both in terms of lump sums or taking positions in the cap table that are going to squeeze out other earliest stage investors like myself. I'm always very worried that if you're licensing your technology, it's great, you know, you got your license, you got backup from the academic institution. But if you're taking 25% of the company, well, that's going to make me a little bit wary. And where is the value? The value was already at the initial work that was licensed. So hopefully, there are other mechanisms for compensation. But I fully agree that this has improved a lot. Maybe the American model has helped a little bit more, and hopefully in the future, I believe now that a lot of the academic institutions have the realization of making an impact in society, not only by fostering innovation or providing care, in the case of hospitals, but rather to ensure that those innovations reach commercial status, because otherwise the impact will never be measured, right? So if you're fostering innovation, you're doing a lot of patents and so on, but if those innovations never reach society, they're not fulfilling their vision, are they?
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 14:58
Yeah, and on this note, maybe I feel like they should act a bit more as mentors for the companies and try to open up their network and, you know, be those kind of board members for those companies. And, yeah, I feel like this is also important.
Nadin Youssef 15:21
Amazing. And from your end, Tatiana, what do you think is perhaps, you know, how can they better align the incentives? I think there's also perhaps a gap, particularly in the UK or in Europe, in contrast to the US, where I think the incentives are slightly more aligned towards the innovator or the inventor wanting to spin out technologies. How do you think they could improve or better align those incentives in the rest of the world?
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 15:49
I think it's an interesting question. I think touching on what Pablo mentioned earlier, the European ecosystem in terms of aligning incentives, let's say, compared to the US, has come a long way, and it's definitely moving in a positive direction. It's not perfect by any means, but it's, like I said, hopefully moving within the right direction. I think naturally there is a complication that within the UK, universities have more public funding, and there's more relationship within that to grants, etc., whereas the US is very much more of a private, closed system. So I think that perhaps that's also where that dissonance comes from. I think ultimately the best way to help align incentives is to really be able to transfer that vision of getting a technology to patients that could be through means of ensuring founders are aligned through the cap table or working closely with them throughout the university and looking at different opportunities that they might have as well. I think ultimately, academics are vision-driven, and they would like to see their idea get to scale.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 17:06
So there are lots of different factors at play.
Nadin Youssef 17:08
And, you know, you mentioned incentives. But I wanted to also ask Beatriz, what about partnerships? Coming from that corporate side, how do you think that partnerships could, for example, also support the sort of tech transfer from academia into the market?
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 17:26
Yeah, I think that, of course, engaging early in the days with strategic corporates in the industry is essential. I don't know the perspective that someone that is right there with the customers can provide and do this trial and error right at the beginning, not just for the startup and for the spin-out, but also how others would perceive this company with this addition is key. So I think it's essential.
Nadin Youssef 18:05
Very interesting. Okay, amazing. And then I guess one other point where we keep touching on what the TTO can do or what the institutions can do, but what about what VC investors could do, right? And so Pablo, over to you. What do you think should these investors do at these early stages of development when they're engaging with the TTO to really create and foster that innovative environment and help them make it through to the market?
Pablo Prieto 18:35
Well, when you're so early in a venture, first of all, you always need to have a plan and know that that plan is never going to come to fruition. There's going to be detours, there's going to be bumps, stops, whatever you want to call it, but you need to have a plan, and you need to be able to demonstrate to your early investors that you are meeting those milestones within time and path. I think what I'm saying sounds pretty obvious to someone coming from corporates and from other walks of life, but for academics, sometimes they have a little bit more flexibility in terms of time and financing. When you're in business, you no longer have that luxury, especially when you're taking money from the outside. So for early-stage investors, I think we need to help them craft that plan, make achievable milestones, and have an equity story behind it. So if you're at the pre-seed stage, you want to make sure that you're going to be hitting milestones that seed funds are going to find attractive. Attractive in which way? Well, maybe the risk in the technology, maybe advancing in regulatory, maybe solidifying the IP position, maybe building the team. I mean, there's a number of things there that will need to happen. I think the job that both Tatiana and Gina are doing with very early innovators is crafting those plans, and then when, as an investor, I receive those plans, those plans seem to be credible and need to be aligned. Communication happens more often than not, but I would say plan, plan, plan, and then acknowledge that the plan will not be met at some point.
Nadin Youssef 20:08
So holding on to that expectation that the plan always can sometimes change.
Pablo Prieto 20:31
Yeah, okay. I think one of the things, as well, that Pablo, you've mentioned earlier to me, was also about the governance structures and how sometimes governance can be tricky for these spin-outs. So what do you think would be the best sort of way for them to manage this?
Pablo Prieto 20:31
Yeah, so I have a couple of nightmare stories where technology was licensed from academic institutions, and those academic institutions had veto power on the board about who came on board as investors or as partners, for instance. They don't want to collaborate with the strategics right away. There's like, "What are you talking about? This is the best ever." You know, you have a very early-stage signal. You have a strategic that is interested. What's not to like here? But they had veto power and didn't want to go with any strategic, so those kinds of situations make me as an investor very edgy. You don't want that. I mean, who should have veto power? I mean, I'm going to go extensive on this, but there are sometimes in technology transfer agreements clauses that damage your business down the line. So I think you need to be very wary about whether you let your academic institution take a board seat, and if so, under which conditions? This should probably be a time cap or a milestone cap, whatever you want to do. You need to work out those provisions so they don't basically hijack your technology, because at the end of the day, the company is no longer part of the academic institution. It's an entity on its own. It has its own governance and its own shareholder agreements. Let's face it.
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 21:52
Maybe to add on to that, you were talking about horror stories. We've definitely had our share as well, and it can be things as simple as slowing down the venture because the university simply isn't set up to move quickly. But as a shareholder, if you do insist on equity in the company, you have obligations as a shareholder as well. And if it takes you three months to answer an email, which is the case for some of the horror stories, then it also doesn't make sense to take a shareholder position or even a board position. There are certainly universities that are great at this, and they know how to be shareholders, and they're very supportive, and they add value. But there are others who don't, and not all of them need to play that role.
Nadin Youssef 22:35
I think education is also one of the things that VC investors should be engaging with these TTOs to really show them the impact that they could have at these very early stages of these companies, right? And so I think there's something to reflect on as investors on how to do that. I don't know what other, I guess the other thing I wanted to also comment on that we've mentioned is really we've mentioned the incentives, we've mentioned this sort of governance structure, as well as how industry partnerships can also really help foster that innovative environment and ambience in these academic institutions. But what about who they're surrounding themselves with? And maybe let's just touch a bit more on that team element because from my experiences, I guess from Nina Capital, a lot of the times that I get pitched by these spin-outs, it's almost a pitch deck. It's almost like their thesis system, their whole PhD is in a deck. And so that then sort of signals to me that the team perhaps is not thinking as commercially as I'd like them to think. And so I'd wanted to hear from everyone here sort of any experiences they've had with those teams and how you've navigated. I know from our end, some of our portfolio companies that were spun out, for example, Early Sight. How do we navigate helping them make a team that is both scientifically strong, technologically strong, but also commercially strong? And then, you know, I always feel that there's some of that friction there.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 24:11
You know, I think that when someone comes from academia, or even like a spin-out from a corporate, right, you need to change the mentality and have some sort of restructuring or, you know, some sort of new mentality upon this, right? Because otherwise, you might take some things from the past, and you need to act as a startup personally, right? In some cases, we had the issue where the co-founders were so in love with the idea and a bit focused on their niche that this wasn't working. After some time, well, you realize you tried to mentor. But if not, changes are always good.
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 25:02
Yeah, yeah.
Gina Melchner 25:04
I think to touch on that, we've definitely seen some flavor of very academic-led opportunities. I think we've put in some unique parts of the infrastructure to help facilitate that commercial thinking as early as possible. For example, one of our sourcing strategies is that we have entrepreneurs in residence who float around departments, meet with academics who would like to have a spin-out, but they acknowledge that they would just like to be involved in more of a fractional sense, or often the university has commitments of what other work they can do alongside their academic role. So we have our EIRs work closely with them to think about what a company could look like in which, again, you can build a really strong commercial team around them. They can have their role still while giving strong clinical expertise, but trying to build not only that strong team around them but also very early go-to-market commercial thinking to avoid them going out to market with a more naive sense of what a business would look like. That's another mechanism, actually, within Oxford, but it's connected more to the university called Venture Scouts, and they're also trying to do this early uncovering and helping more of this commercial thinking happen earlier and earlier.
Nadin Youssef 26:27
Interesting.
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 26:29
Do you know anything else on that?
Gina Melchner 26:30
Yeah, I think for me, the best founders I see out there are the ones who realize what they don't know and can then specifically surround themselves with expertise to compensate for that. Bring in the team members, the advisors, the investors who can compensate for the things that you don't know or you don't have experience with. I mean, it's very natural for an academic founder who's doing this for the first time to not understand the commercial side. You know, what you're good at is the deep tech and science behind it, and that's a great thing, and no one knows it all, but really being honest with yourself about what expertise you need to bring in is massively helpful to these startups.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 27:13
Very interesting. For me, I'm going to give the perspective that for me, unless a team is well-formed, it's a no-go. I mean, every single person in the investment community will tell you, you invest mostly in teams. You can have the best technology. If it's not distributed properly, it's not going to make it to the market successfully. And that's 99%, I would say, team effort. So you need to have a team that is driven in that regard. So when I look at very early ventures, yes, you know, an academic founder who is obsessed with becoming the CEO, maybe because he has this funny idea that being a CEO is pretty cool. I've started three companies. It's not really, and when you're that early, it is stressful, to say the least, but there is no romanticism about it. But they sometimes have this romantic idea and will not let go. So I agree with Gina; academic founders who acknowledge this is my forte and my strength and are surrounded by advisors and so on, it's important, but I will go one step beyond. You need to be able to attract people to your team, and that level of charisma is something that is quite extraordinary and really makes the cut for me. So someone that not only acknowledges, "I'm outside my depth here looking at what's the go-to-market strategy in such and such market," but that can actually attract people to the team to work with them in that regard, not necessarily advisors. I think everybody with some money can pay for external advice and things like that, but to actually attract and engage people that are experienced, I think that's something that is on my playbook. The other thing that I've done is I acquired the habit of having a list of potential team members for early startups, and so whenever there's a match in personalities, I will at least try to make the connection. Why? Because unless you form that team, most of these super early-stage companies are non-investable for me, unless they're coming from incubators.
Nadin Youssef 29:22
And just on that incubator point, you know, in addition to the team, Gina, what other things do you think they struggle with the most when you see this prototype?
Gina Melchner 29:34
I mean, being in a startup is very, very different from being in academia. It's a constant roller coaster; the speed is completely different, and not everyone is suited to it. And that's okay; not everyone needs to be an entrepreneur. And that's, of course, why we're here and why you're here as well. We really need to help fill that gap and help the entrepreneurs that are suited to be entrepreneurs to really become that and to surround themselves with the right people, but also show the ones who aren't that there is another pathway for their invention to make an impact.
Nadin Youssef 30:10
I agree. I think it's really interesting because another thing I've noticed is, well, during my time at Imperial College, I would be fascinated by the fact that tech transfer not only happened from academia into the market, but even happened internally between departments. So I would see, for example, a lab in life sciences taking technology from the automated space, so from the electrical engineers in that department, and they were reapplying it to what could potentially be its application in healthcare. I found that fascinating. But the other thing I noticed as well, in relation to that, was that when these academics were patenting innovations, there was often a value, but they often came out looking for a problem, not that they were born from a specific problem. And so I think that's key. And so what is the work that they can do at those early stages? Because by the time I see them, they quit their jobs. Some of them are now full-time, and it's a great technology, but they're still searching for where it can be applied. So what are the things we would recommend everyone? Let's begin with you on how that could be avoided. How do you avoid being a solution looking for a problem?
Gina Melchner 31:29
I think you need to iterate a fair amount to find your equity story. I was speaking this morning to a company that started, has really cool technology, started on a market, and the first feedback that I said is, "Look, this is great technology. You're just in the wrong market." I didn't need to say it myself; he has been pitching for a whole year. He hasn't been able to raise, and now he discovered his technology can be applied in another market, and all of a sudden, everybody is interested. So I think there is a lesson to be learned there, and in order to raise capital for a startup, you need to have a solid equity story that resonates, and all investors are looking roughly for the same thing: a substantial market or a very significant transformational technology that will shape up the market in a different way, and a team that can deliver. Okay? So this guy was very resilient for one year, but it took him one year to find his equity story. So the learning, the suggestion that I would have for everyone facing this is, even before you start raising, try to pitch different angles to early-stage investors or even later-stage investors or incumbents to see where it actually sticks. Because if it's not sticking, it's not worth quitting your job.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 32:51
I think that's a really good piece of advice. Anyone else have any other pieces of advice, perhaps, on how to avoid being the solution looking for the problem?
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 33:02
I would say focus on the need, but the most important part is also how are you going to monetize it again? And then, you know, this part of trying to do those early-stage pilots or trying to check in with the industry, with the patients, with those hospitals, with those physicians right at the beginning and checking if they will be willing to pay for it is essential.
Nadin Youssef 33:30
Taking part, yeah, and I think that's actually very interesting that you pointed that out because I feel like there's a responsibility within the institution to let the spin-out do that market research, right? So you mentioned, for example, early-stage pilots. A lot of the academic institutions have hospitals that are attached to them. So also maybe facilitating the transfer of that technology to be piloted or tested out in that as a sort of launch pad is also an interesting thing that I think institutions should definitely be pushing for. All right, amazing.
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 34:06
I mean, to that end, we could again learn from new trends in the US. First of all, in the US, a lot of hospitals right now are raising their own funds, Innovation Funds. And second, there is a new model that is happening both in Israel and in the US, which is services for equity. So the hospital becomes a shareholder of yours, but they commit to purchasing the services of the startup early on, and that gives scalability and proof of, let's say, clinical usefulness without the necessity of going into very complicated clinical trial success. So just being actually in the environment where your solution will be deployed in the future. You know, I really think you need to see case by case, but I think I would be very comfortable with the hospital sitting on the board if they're going to be committed to expanding your product and helping you develop it further down the line.
Nadin Youssef 35:09
No, that's great. And actually, I wasn't aware of that model that was happening in both the services for equity. I think that's an interesting way to go about it. Yeah, definitely. All right. And so I guess for the sort of last question I wanted to ask all of you is, and we can start with you, in one word, what do you think inventors must get right to properly transition between invention and a commercial product?
Tatiana Lobanov-Rostovsky 35:41
It's hard in one word. Okay, no return. I'm going to have a couple of words, but some kind of early thinking on go-to-market and commercial.
Nadin Youssef 35:57
Okay, go-to-market and commercial. Gina, one word is indeed hard.
Gina Melchner 35:59
Yeah, I think there are so many things, but maybe you can wrap it up into opportunity. You really, really need to understand your opportunity, both from a clinical impact angle as well as from a financial angle, because if you don't understand your opportunity, then you're not going to be able to sell it to an investor either.
Beatriz Volckaert Almansa 36:20
I would add this: I would say, yeah, focus on the need and try to find out how to make a business out of it.
Nadin Youssef 36:31
Okay, so for being again, I guess that would be more being a proper solution to a need, so being need-driven and then commercial. Amazing. And then Pablo, I was hoping you wouldn't go all the way down the line because it's hard to add to what has been said. I'm going to go a slightly different direction. There is significant evidence from Pittsburgh and so on that the valuation of companies is significantly higher the more IP is behind it. So very often, you find a lot of startups that come with a single patent application, and there is a wealth of knowledge behind that application, but there is only a single application. For whatever reason, the Technology Transfer office didn't have any more money to do any more applications, or whatever it was. So I'm going to say, try to build as much IP because honestly, for your pre-money valuation in your first round, the more patents you have, the higher your valuation is going to be because the higher is going to be your defensibility. Yes, the opportunity needs to be there, commercial, etc. Yeah, I had to say something different, so I'm going to say IP.
Nadin Youssef 37:40
I think that was actually quite insightful. So thank you so much. All right, so unless anyone else has anything else to sort of add, I think we can wrap up the panel. Thank you so much for being here with us today, guys, and thank you as well to the audience for coming to listen.
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