by Marie Daghlian
RESI (Redefining Early Stage Investments) capped a busy first week of June in Boston with more than 800 attendees who participated in more than 1500 meetings.
“RESI June Boston showcased an amazing array of international technology assets and startup entrepreneurs,” noted Dennis Ford, CEO of Life Science Nation (LSN), the creator of the RESI conference series that connects startups with early-stage investors and licensing partners. Early-stage investors are definitely writing checks and licensing partners are doing deals.”
RESI, in-person, was on June 5th, with the majority of the 800 attendees split equally between sell-side startups and buyside investors and licensing partners seeking in person partnering opportunities, attending panel discussions, and exhibiting their companies, with virtual partnering ongoing through June 7th. Therapeutics developers made up half of the startups, with medical device developers constituting a quarter of attendees, and diagnostics, digital health and R&D service companies making up the rest.
“Mid-stage and late-stage investors are still in a log jam, but early-stage players are funding many startups with smaller dollar increments and betting that a few will be successful,” noted Ford. “RESI is a dedicated partnering event and is unique in that the global startup investor and licensing partners have made RESI a very informal community-like event where all the buy-side attendees are very open in offering advice and guidance to the scientist-entrepreneurs attending.”
Investors and licensing partners made up about half of the attendees at RESI June Boston, consisting of venture capital (45%), angels and family offices (17%), pharma and medtech strategics (15%), corporate venture capital (14%), and private equity, foundations, and governmental organizations making up the rest.
Fifty-six life sciences companies participated in the Innovation Pitch Challenge and showcased their companies in the exhibit hall and pitched to a panel of experts who judged them by category. Three companies won the challenge. Argentinean-based Untech, a company that has developed a proprietary breakthrough medication for chronic wounds, won the therapeutics challenge. Australia-based Clinials, an AI driven participant recruitment platform to solve the problem where 80% of clinical trials fail to meet enrolment deadlines, won the digital health challenge. Finally, Boston-based Thrive Bioscience, which sells instruments and software that provide previously unavailable data, imaging, analytics, and automation for live cell biology, won the R&D and life science tools challenge.
RESI also introduced a new platform at the conference that it calls Global Partnering Campaign (GPC), Fundraising & Licensing Partner Roadshow Management. The GPC integrates Life Science Nation’s Investor and Licensing Partner Database and the Salesforce CRM. LSN customized this platform, leveraging years of experience as a broker/dealer helping early-stage life sciences companies attract capital and says it will be a game changer for early-stage startups seeking between $100K and $50M (seed-series B).
Starting in July, RESI and Big4Bio will also launch LifeSci Startup, a free daily email newsletter that will contain the most up-to-date news, information, tools, and more for and about U.S.-based life sciences startups.
RESI conferences focus on maximizing fundraising companies’ efforts to find partners that fit their technology and stage of development. RESI is uniquely cross-border and cross-domain, connecting start-ups with 10 categories of global investors across the silos of drugs, devices, diagnostics, and digital health, catering to both the earliest stage start-ups, those seeking grants, seed and angel capital, and the early-stage firms who seek series A and B funding. RESI returns to Boston in a hybrid format, September 18-20, a full in-person conference Monday, September 18, and virtual partnering September 19-20.