Rufus Scientific Ltd.

Most of the biotechnology industry depends on investor finance to build new enterprises. It is rare for a company to be started with only the founders' savings. How much is needed to turn a neat idea or a fascinating discovery into a commercial product? Where does that cash come from? What sort of providers might accept the risks and timescales of a biotechnology company, and what do they expect in return? Answers to these are other questions are critical to deciding what to do with a new technology.

I have spent over 15 years researching how biotech companies actually get financed. The reality is quite different from the myth embodied in blogs, conference speeches and books.

Alas, there is no 'financing landscape' that can be drawn and navigated - it is a seascape, constantly changing, liable to drown the unwary. How one navigates the reefs and whirlpools depends on today's climate and tomorrow's weather. Basing decisions today on how to commercialise technology based on what happened yesterday may work. But it may not.

In particular, seeking VC investment can be a poor move, depending on technology, stage, location, business model and aspirations of the founders of a new enterprise. The VC business model is rarely what is described in textbooks - or VC firm's web sites.

I have hands-on, practical experience of these issues as a scientist, entrepreneur, manager, investor and venture capitalist. I am currently involved in start-up companies, investment groups and new technologies on both sides of the Atlantic, and can provide practical advice on what the best route forward is. For my ground-breaking book on financing biotech in Europe, see this link

A major project over the last 5 years has been finding how investment patterns differ across the world. Of course the USA dominates VC investment in biotechnology (75% of early-stage investment globally in biotech is American), but where in the USA, where is the money invested in the rest of the world, and how has that changed over ths last decade of financial crash and recovery? In collaboration with Nature Biotechnology I have recently compiled this data into an interactive map. Click on the image to the left to access this map, and here to access the associated commentary.