How to find bio companies before anyone else!

-Disclaimer: these opinions are my own-

So you’ve landed a fellowship, or (even-better) a permanent position in venture capital (VC). Certainly, one thing you have to show off the mark is that you can obtain relevant, and high-quality deal flow. How does one do this? Is there a catch-all place where this mecca of information can be found? Well, I have compiled a list of 120+ translational labs in the top biotech clusters in the US: https://bit.ly/3sgZAtZ

This is (newly) one of the many ways to find dealflow, other ways are discussed below. This article is for new or seasoned biotechnology investors that are interested in early-stage companies. I wrote this because most beginner VC articles are written about getting into VC but what about when you get in? Up your game and knowledge of the sector by reading this short article, mostly comprised of links.

Press releases, newsletters, publications from top-tier journals, relevant patents, accelerators and incubators, and technology transfer offices are all great places to start. Below are links to begin your search.

Press releases are great for new technology, early investments and company nucleation news. Some of these links require subscriptions but have free trials which you can use to get some relevant companies.

• Fierce Biotech
• Biospace (Filter News > New Companies)
• Labiotech
• STAT
• SynBioBeta
• GenEngNews
• Science daily
• BioPharma Dive
• Crunchbase (also good for company stage/funding raised information)
• Biocentury
• Tech Crunch
• Sifted

Newsletters, like new press releases and papers are fantastic to get contemporaneous knowledge and/or summaries of the field.

• This Week in Bio by Hummingbird’s own Thomas Vanderstichele
• Axial
• a16z bio
• Content from Alix Ventures
• For those interested in bio beyond health, there is Agfunder
• Century of Biology

Publications are fantastic for very early proof-of-concept studies and understanding the labs involved in the field. PRO-TIP: If the publication is associated with an already established company, this has to be disclosed in the author affiliation or conflict of interest sections. ALSO: PubMed has a trending page which has the most popular articles which could be good for identifying breakthrough findings. Search for relevant technology at these sites:

• https://scholar.google.co.uk/
• https://idiscover.lib.cam.ac.uk/
• https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/about/

Publications 2.0: also check out the highest-impact journals and even the opinion articles in the beginning of these journals:

• Nature
• Nature biotechnology
• Cell
• Science
• Science Advances
• PNAS
• Nature Biomedical Engineering

Patents, which allow for legal defensibility, signal an intent to commercialise are sometimes filed pre-company nucleation. Try searching these databases for patents pertaining to your field of interest. Lens is much more comprehensive and has a fantastic user interface but takes a bit more time to learn to use. Google Patents isn’t the most comprehensive but take no time to learn to use.

• Lens
• Google patents

Accelerators and incubators are always happy to hype their portfolio companies and will have pitch days throughout the year which you can attend. These are generalist biotech-focussed but there are specific ones which you can find dedicated to more niche areas in bio.

• Brinc
• Y Combinator
• IndieBio
• JLABS
• Start Codon
• Illumina Accelerator
• QB3
• Lab Central
• StartX
• MBC Biolabs
• UCSF Rosenman Institute
• Chan-Zuckerberg Biohub
• GridX
• Alchemist
• Deep Science Ventures

Tech transfer offices (TTO’s), like accelerators, are keen to showcase how productive they are in translating the university’s scientific discoveries. This is but a short list so feel free to explore further!

• The Engine MIT
• Harvard
• Stanford
• Yale
• University of Washington
• Carnegie Mellon
• Johns Hopkins
• Rice University
• UCLA
• UCSD
• UCSF
• University of California Berkeley

I’m certainly still a learning so feel free to message me about additions!