Luc Marengere, TVM Capital Life Sciences | LSI Europe '23

Transcription

Luc Marengere  0:00  
My name is Dr. Luc Marengere. I'm a managing partner with TVM Capital. And I've been doing venture capital for 27 years now, mainly in North America, we invest in, in medical device we invest in, in biotech as well. And on the medical device side, we prefer to invest in companies that are early, early commercialization stage. What got me into venture capital is a bit Just good old fashioned curiosity is that I was a an academic researcher at the time. And I was very curious above and beyond academia, academic research, right? What is the applied side of research, and I decided to try a, an opportunity in venture capital back in 1996. And, and I jumped in it. And basically, I never looked back, I absolutely love the applied side of venture capital, because you take discoveries, but you turn them into innovations. And what we do now is we turn them into commercial products that really make a difference for patients, for healthcare providers, and society in general, for the next 12 months, at TVM because we've we've, we've built a portfolio already, we're looking for two things, we're really looking to round out the portfolio by making anywhere between two and four additional investments, probably mostly in medical device and imaging, but we're also looking actively for a diagnostic deal as well. The second element that we're targeting, is given the fact that we have a portfolio of existing companies that are now in more advanced commercial stage. And one of the attraction about this LSI conference is meeting with strategics. Right? So while we invest, and the concept of investing is always to build the most viable the best companies we can. But we're venture capitalists at one point, we need a return on investment. Hence, the importance of meeting with strategics. The best advice that I can provide entrepreneurs looking to raise money meeting with with investors, such as ourselves, is to try to be as clear as you possibly can on the differentiation of your product. And what value does it bring to patients to healthcare providers, and ultimately, also for payers for reimbursement? Okay, what data will you need to build these arguments, okay, and and where you're at, in your stage of development, you're not going to be a perfect fit for every investor that you that you meet with, but but tell you know, the State of the Union, in terms of where you are with your company, define that as clearly as you can. Because that's mutually beneficial for both yourself and the potential investors sitting across the table from you. Right away, you either find out it's not quite the right time or right away, you find out that this is compatible, right. And this is what we're both looking for a TVM. We're certainly agnostic. From a geography perspective, we've historically been, we've invested a little bit more on the North American side, just because the sheer numbers, right, there's more opportunities to look out, there's more CO investors and so on. This is where most of the strategics really are headquartered and so on. However, we are quite actively looking for deals in Europe, as well. We've invested in a few therapeutics, we've invested in a few companies that are that are a device or CDMO type of companies, but we are actively looking for medical device or imaging technologies that are products that are commercial in Europe at the moment. In fact, the most surprising thing I've come across so far at this LSI conference is the frankly, post COVID, it's as though people were were kept little to too long in a box. And now you come to this conference, and people genuinely appreciate the in person contact and it's great post COVID. You know, most people have to refresh, if not completely rebuild their network, right. So this is a great opportunity to meet in a relatively small venue, but high quality of participants. The reason why I would recommend coming to LSI is again, you know, almost regardless of what you're looking for, but this is a meeting where we find the best quality of size of meeting the venue, it's conducive to proper one one on one meetings, it's conducive to, to multiple meetings with entrepreneurs as well. But it's the entire ecosystem that shows up at the LSI conference for us. It's equally important to generate new deals. So we're looking at deal flow and companies that are budding and so on. It's also equally important to talk to co investors and see where how they think about the about their investments and what they're looking for. And the third element is of course meeting with strategics. Because at the end of the day, we're investing in order to eventually sell to the strategics. Right, so the the ability to have this trio at LSI in a convenient venue, and relatively small conducive to meaningful interactions. That's a great recipe. Keep that up.