"Value-Add" is a Two-Way Street: Success Through Investor-Founder Partnerships | LSI Europe '24

Marta G. Zanchi 00:05
It's great to be back. I'm Marta. I'm the Founder and Managing Partner of Nina Capital. We are an investment firm focused on investing in healthcare. Our mission is to improve healthcare by seeding health technology founders that are focused on needs in the market and backing them internationally. So far, we have 50 investments in 20 countries, and one of them is here with us today. A bit about myself, very short PhD in electrical engineering, so I'm an unconventional VC, coming from the nerd side. I've been an academic. I worked as a consultant. I was a founder and a CEO of a startup, and I find myself on the side of investing and loving working with a new generation of healthcare technology entrepreneurs that are as need-driven as many of my friends back in California, which is where I spent most of my last two decades. Today, I'm here to please introduce Christina. Christina is the killer founder who was born in Sweden, studied nuclear physics, went to CERN for a PhD in applied physics, and there she was for 12 years a physicist at CERN. In her spare time, because she was bored of nuclear applied physics, she earned an MBA, and then she became a founder and CEO of Terapet, which she incorporated in 2019. Just to add to the list of her incredible achievements, she raised a seed financing round three months into the pandemic in 2020, and that was the beginning of our relationship as founder and investor. We've been in this partnership since 2020, and today we're here to learn about her company's incredible story, and in the process, we hope to share some lessons learned about how to build strong relationships between investors and founders.

Christina Vallgren 01:59
Great. Thank you, Marta.

Marta G. Zanchi 01:59
So let's get started. So Christina, tell us about your journey. What inspired you to start Terapet?

Christina Vallgren 02:07
Thank you, Marta, for inviting me here. It's a great place to be here. It's a nice dinner, nice people, and I'm really happy. So the journey, as Marta already mentioned, started in December 2019 when Terapet was incorporated. But the idea of the company was already born in 2018. One of my co-founders is also a physicist working at CERN, and at that time, he was building the first Proton Therapy Center in Austria. So when a physicist was trying to build the perfect machine to treat cancer patients with protons, they got a high requirement from physicians. They needed to translate all the clinical specifications into hardware requirements, and it turned out to be extremely challenging. The machine at that time cost over 200 million, and once the machine is built and you can deliver perfect protons into the patients, then you realize that there's a huge uncertainty inside patients; you don't really know where the protons are really arriving. So although you spend the energy and money to build such an expensive machine, then all the requirements are pointless. So at that time, there was frustration from the physicists and also from the doctors, since they don't know where the protons are really arriving. They have to add margins around the tumor to be conservative, to make sure that all the cancer cells are killed. So that also means unnecessary radiation for the patients. So it's a frustration for the doctors, but for me, as a physicist working at CERN for the last 12 years, I have seen a lot of wonderful things happening in research, but I never left research. Since I have a desire to make great things, I see the big gap between research and commercialization, so I have a desire to make it happen. So three of us met and we decided to create Terapet, and that's why Terapet started.

Marta G. Zanchi 04:27
You're a great example of what we call a really need-driven, mission-driven founding team. You spotted the problem on your skin, decided that it was too much of a frustration to brush off, and did something about it. There were some inflection points, though, in the early years of Terapet. Can you tell us a little bit more about the most interesting ones?

Christina Vallgren 04:46
Yes, sure. So the company itself was created in December 2019 in combination with a pre-seed round of about half a million. At that time, it was a spin-out from CERN, and we also received full ownership of the patents at the same time. That's one of the inflection points. We also won several well-known awards within Switzerland and gained a lot of traction among early-stage investors. So six months later, we managed to raise our seed round. We were very lucky, or not unlucky at the same time, because it was in the middle of the lockdown, but we met Marta, so we managed to raise the seed round, and almost at the same time, we also got about 1.5 million in non-dilutive funds and collaborated with world-class research institutes like CERN, Karolinska Hospital, and also Skåne University Hospital from Sweden and Politecnico di Milano, where Nata is coming from. So then that's what the inflection point was for how Terapet took off the ground.

Marta G. Zanchi 06:05
I remember those times; crazy times. But you know, your drive, your resilience, your confidence, you make it sound like there was no other chance; this had to happen. And I think this is what really does it altogether, and actually allowed this financing round to close in June of 2020. But there were some other inflection points. I know that we were, from the very beginning, mission-driven, but the Venn diagram of technology and market did change over time as we were learning. What changed?

Christina Vallgren 06:34
Actually, what changed in fact? So when we created the company, our focus was very clear. We wanted to make proton therapy. Proton therapy is, maybe I haven't explained before, the most advanced radiotherapy in the world. The machine itself costs up to 200 million to build. But although the machine itself is extremely precise, as I said before, we don't see where inside the patients the protons are really arriving, so the margin is uncertain, and all these kinds of things. So the focus in the beginning was to bring proton therapy to the next level. But what changed is that, in fact, proton therapy is an extremely specialized and niche market, and obviously, the customer base is very limited. So over the year, we realized that in order to attract further funding to bring our dream to the next stage and also to gain more traction, we needed to broaden our customer base and also utilize our core technology to broaden the customer segments. So what we have done is that over the year, we slowly, gradually, I would say, repositioned our company's focus not only to build an add-on medical device to existing proton therapy facilities but in order to build a crucial standalone nuclear imaging device that will benefit all patients at any hospital around the world. So that was what happened.

Marta G. Zanchi 08:23
You know, you remind me of something that I heard Andrew from the Faculty Institute and also Todd from Edwards Lifesciences say today on a panel. For me, you embody the characteristics that they mentioned successful founders have. They are humble enough to know their limits and what they don't know, but they're confident enough to break through them and actually learn, and with that, learn their companies through navigating very hard waters. So that's what you did, and I know that in the process, the vision for the company changed, and moving the company towards the North Star caused some friction, and it called for some contributions from your investors. So I was curious to ask you, did your investors have any role in helping shape the new vision for the company, whether positive or negative?

Christina Vallgren 09:17
I think once you tell your investors, "Okay, here was our original focus," then later on, a few years later, you say, "Oh, I want to do something totally different." But we are not doing something totally different because the company's core technology is nuclear imaging technology, so it can be used in many different applications. But of course, most of the investors are telling you, "No, as a founder, you have to focus. You have to focus." But of course, when you are focusing, at the same time, you should not limit the opportunity and the potential of finding new paths to create value for your company because all startups find their success in unconventional paths. So the trust and the support from the investors are crucial, especially in the time that you want to broaden your focus for the company.

Marta G. Zanchi 10:21
Let's stay on this topic then, since that's the meat of the panel: the investors' role in shaping a company's story. So I'm curious to ask you, if you think back about those crazy first few months of the pandemic, everybody locked in, you were raising your seed financing round, welcoming new investors like me, whom you had never met. What were your expectations for how those investors could actually help chart your journey after that?

Christina Vallgren 10:50
So, I mean, as all the founders here, we all heard about smart money, but at that time, as I'm a first-time founder, I mean, smart money, we all heard about it. Investors need to bring more than just capital. But at that time, when we raised our seed round, we didn't really know what it really meant. But by the time, during the years, we learned that smart money means quite a lot. It means the added value that the investor brings to the table. That means network expertise, field expertise, and people that they can introduce to you, both for the technical side and also on the financial side, and of course, they give you guidance to help you grow the company together.

Marta G. Zanchi 11:44
And now in hindsight, four years have passed, actually five almost. Did you find that your expectations for how they could have supported you have been met? And if not, how could you have acted differently to ensure better alignment?

Christina Vallgren 12:03
As I said before, as a first-time founder, there's a lot of new things that you have to learn. So one of the things that I have learned is the communication with the investors. You need to hold transparent discussions. A lot of times, conflict arises because you don't understand each other. So transparent communication is the key to solving most of the problems. So that's what we have learned.

Marta G. Zanchi 12:31
I completely second that. We'll talk about this a little bit more on the other side of the table, actually, but I'm curious to ask you, you had some initial expectations, not too many because of the first-time experience in fundraising. But were there any ways in which your investors surprised you pleasantly with their capacity to add value? I'm especially interested in understanding if there are some contributions that your investors have made that you were not expecting, surprised you, and you would recommend a fellow founder, such as yourself, to seek from your investors at the table.

Christina Vallgren 13:11
You mean the expectations that we didn't...

Marta G. Zanchi 13:14
Anything that you didn't expect, that they delivered and did to actually help you. And now you want to recommend other CEOs to seek those contributions from their investors?

Christina Vallgren 13:26
Yeah, I think I would recommend all the CEOs, first-time founders. I think it's important to raise funds, but never rush into a deal without really looking at who you are partnering with. I mean, the character, valuation is important; one thing is important, but also the terms, and most importantly, it's also the character of the investors. Because you are together for the long run, and the trust is mutual, so you need to build trust for the long run. So I think what we didn't know at the time when we raised funds, but as we have been quite lucky, we found that the ones that really have good chemistry together. So we have been since the pandemic. So yeah, it's also the guidance that the investor needs to teach the founder to see what you don't really know. You have to be honest about it. As a first-time founder, let the ego not get in the way.

Marta G. Zanchi 14:38
There is an important lesson here, which is valuable also for investors. I ask you a lot about your expectations for your investors, but we as investors also have expectations for our founders. I've been in your shoes before fundraising, and the capacity of CEOs. Now I find myself as a middle person in fundraising for our funds and then deploying capital to invest in the next generation of healthcare technology founders. I want to just stress how important it is what you said: communications, communications, communications. I was always a believer in radical transparency, radical candor, but I've become even more so when building this very crucial relationship in very high-stakes situations where change is the norm. Of course, communication does nothing if there is no North Star, if there is no alignment on a mission. So much so that I encourage myself, my team, and the founders in our portfolio to always put the mission up front, put it on the first page of a deck, at the bottom of your signature block, at the beginning of a board agenda. Communication and being mission-driven is what I believe is the foundation of companies' alignment with their investors, especially those on the board. Building on that, actually, I wanted to say so far we have talked a lot about good things, but there is another universal truth that I have found is a recurring pattern in our relationship with founders. When we are working on the due diligence of a company and we have decided to invest, everything looks good; it's exciting. We're going to change the world. I think the apex of that is the day of the closing. I closed one investment today. I was in my room this afternoon signing the investment document for one investment in a US company. And I was thinking, this is great. This is perfect. I know that that moment cannot be made any better. I know that a few weeks later, the first board of directors meeting will come, and everything will look different. Everything will be very difficult. The CEO will complain because the head of sales is useless, and we're staring at the bottom of a decreasing runway, and it's already three months shorter because we have spent a ton in legal fees to close the round. The one thing that I've seen as a recurring pattern for founders is just a certain level of disappointment. As soon as their investor directors open their mouth, it's very clear that there is an information misalignment, which is a polite way to say that your investor on the board does not have a clue about what's going on in the company, and you have the task of directing a company while at the same time being a good steward of your relationship with your investor. So you can use them, and you can come along with them on the journey. So, clueless, what have you learned about the key elements that make for a very good relationship between a founder and an investor on the board?

Christina Vallgren 18:09
I mean, as Marta already mentioned many times, transparency in communication and a lot of communications as well, so that's one of the main tools to build relationships and at least trust. But I mean, the thing that we have learned is also conflict management that the CEO or founder director needs to handle because a lot of times investors set requirements on the founder. They tell the founder, "You have to make a decision based on the best interest of the company." Actually, the same requirement the founder should make for the investors as well, right? But most of the time, we do understand investors have a fiduciary duty towards the company, but they also have a fiduciary duty towards their own investors. So sometimes the conflict of interest does exist. When it comes up to the surface, most of the time it's just because of bad communication or a bad understanding of each other. So you don't understand the motivation of the funds, maybe. So that's also something that you need to really ask your investors or your potential investors from the start: what's the motivation of the funds? How long? How does the fund look like? How is the fund built? How long do they plan to contribute in the future? So once the expectation is clear, at least you are clear with each other's expectations down the road. So that was also a good thing to do.

Marta G. Zanchi 19:49
I guess I feel there are some interesting stories in there and maybe even some scars in the journey. Can you give us an example of a relationship that went sour, and why? And what did you learn from it?

Christina Vallgren 20:03
I think I just read a book a few weeks ago. It's a startup book. It talks about VC funds and explains different structures in VC funds, different VC funds, and how they work. They say that when business turns, every startup is a soap opera. So I think it's not because something is really unique that happens just to you. I think every startup has their unique story to tell. In our specific case, we have gone through the seed round in the middle of the lockdown, and we also recently raised our Series A in the middle of the financial crisis. We normally joke inside that if we manage to close funds in this pandemic, we can manage to close funds in the middle of the financial crisis; from now on, nothing can stop us. So I think hard times create strong startups. And we, yeah, it's a lesson learned. And as someone who's interested in learning things, it can go well, although, as first founders, right?

Marta G. Zanchi 21:16
And let's stay on the topic of the board just for a minute longer because I do think that is such an underappreciated component of a company's potential success. There are investors on the board, entrepreneurs on the board, and independent members of the board. What have you learned about choosing and managing the right independent member of the board, also as a way to maintain and build a relationship with your investors that are directors in the company?

Christina Vallgren 21:47
In most cases, you might not have the privilege to choose any investor directors, but the independent board directors is the place where you might have a choice to make. In our specific case, I think the independent board directors not only act as a counterweight to the investor director or the founder director; they are also experts in the field that can create a lot of networks for the company to grow forward. So I think independent directors are key to having the board function in the best interest of the company.

Marta G. Zanchi 22:32
I echo that. We have actually learned a lot in that angle. From the beginning of Nina Capital to now, we have paid increased attention to how we are supporting the founders to just write contributions on the board of directors and independents. Very often, founders rush into a relationship, forgetting how crucial it is to the good functioning of the rest of the board and how few of them truly, deeply understand what it means to act in the best interest of our shareholders. They can serve very often as a good reminder for the investors who are on the board about what exactly is the rationale for good governance and what should be the guiding principle for working together in that capacity. But let me ask you just very quick five questions about the board. I'm curious to know how you manage. Imagine you are at the board meeting and now choose one of these two options. Option A: I come to the board meeting with all of the facts and the data for my investor directors. Option B: I come to the board meeting with my insights and my interpretation of the facts and data. Which option?

Christina Vallgren 23:49
Okay, it's a hard one. I think, as a physicist, I always like to be a very scientific person, so I always look into the hard data. But I think in this specific case, it's also something that I have learned. I'm a scientist turned entrepreneur, so I think hard data is something that you should discuss before the board meeting. You should really use the board meeting efficiently, so you should come to the board meeting with already insights and almost the direction of where the company should go at that time for the board to decide where it should go. But in our particular case, I normally hold pre-board meetings one-on-one with each of the board directors. So we discuss hard data. We look at the raw data before we make a solid decision. But the board meeting itself, I would go with my insights, and that's the place to make a decision, not to discuss the raw data.

Marta G. Zanchi 24:52
You're so right. You know, I did this psychological experiment once on a board. I just put a slide up with lots of numbers and such, and I asked everyone, "What do you see?" Five different answers. If we come to this type of information with such different experiences and biases and preconceived patterns, it's so difficult to expect that you can rally a board, especially your investors, who, if you're lucky, have read the deck once, to come and have a level of alignment on just the interpretation of the information in front of them. So I think the best founders do exactly as you say. They actually have pre-board meetings, align everyone on an interpretation, and they actually get to decisions. Perhaps even showing up at the board meeting so that the conversation can be enriching. But if you have to start from just getting alignment on what it is on the screen, you never get the board meeting healthily, successfully.

Christina Vallgren 25:53
So you need to prepare your board before the meeting, so the board meeting is a place to make a decision.

Marta G. Zanchi 25:59
Investors are the worst. Investors are the worst. All right, another one. Choose one and explain one. Option A: I lose trust in an investor who tells me what to do and expects me to execute. Option B: I lose trust in an investor who agrees with me all the time?

Christina Vallgren 26:24
It's a good one. I think, as we always say, smart money, you ask investors to bring added value. If the investor director comes in agreeing with everything you say, then you will ask, "Why do I need that person?" right? So there's no added value. So I would go for B, but although I understand I said, but okay, you don't. I think it's sometimes it's good to be challenged from time to time. I'm okay with that.

Marta G. Zanchi 26:55
I'm with you so much. I would choose debate and controversy over just complacency and yes, all the time. Actually, even when I'm in agreement with the CEO, sometimes on a board of directors, I disagree just for the fun of it, just for the learning of it. Let's debate. Let me tell you a contrarian opinion. Let me ask you why. Let me ask you to go back to the drawing board and rethink this, even if I agree. But we lose so much for fear of debate. We think about this being a negative event, controversy. But yes, I think that the boards that actually foster a culture of debate, including with their investors, in a constructive manner, are the ones that are building this partnership in the best way. And there is nothing worse than five people around the table who look exactly the same and agree all the time. This is a company that is not set up for a challenge, and it is probably not growing as fast as it could.

Christina Vallgren 27:55
I agree. Disagreement is not a bad thing all the time. I think it's also a good thing to trigger discussions, right? If we agree on everything, I mean, what's the point? No added value. You should replace all of them with people who have different views.

Marta G. Zanchi 28:11
All right. I like that. Actually, let me ask you, it sounds like a luxury because it's so freaking hard to raise money right now. But should we be choosing our investors based on who is going to sit on the board?

Christina Vallgren 28:30
I think it's, as Marta says, a very hard time to raise funds. I think it's not always the... I mean, the startup doesn't really have the privilege to choose who is going to sit on the board, but at least, I mean, you should try. I think it's not only for you; it's also the responsibility you take for all of your shareholders. Because once you, as a founder director, sit on the board, your responsibility is for all shareholders' interests. I think it's not only, you know, looking on one side; it should be mutual. So I don't, yeah, although you don't have the privilege to choose, but still, at least, I think it's important to evaluate. You need to really look at the character of the director sitting on the board.

Marta G. Zanchi 29:24
You know, sometimes you might not have the luxury of choosing a firm to work with, but there is still a team of people inside an investment firm, and it's okay as a founder to ask, "Yes, I let you invest in my amazing company, but I want him, but I want her on my board." Let's do a deal and make sure that that is part of it because these relationships then will last. And fundamentally, even if the culture of the firm is so important and will transpire, choosing one person from the investment firm to be on the board can make a tremendous amount of difference. So this is something that I feel very few founders do. The majority of founders passively accept the partner that's been assigned to their board without expressing a preference, without disagreeing on the option that has been put on the table. Instead, it should be a dialogue. So I hope more founders do that, and it's always a great sign when they do it with us. So what about investors who are not on the board? What have you learned about managing those minority shareholders that don't have a role in governance?

Christina Vallgren 30:35
Okay, I have the privilege of not having 100 shareholders on my cap table. We have less than 10, actually. So we select them carefully. Most of the minority shareholders are your first believers. I mean, they are your first believers. You owe them the best respect that you should give them. So in our case, I usually call them up one by one and update them with the current progress of the company. I think all of them appreciate that because once you have them on your board, it's not that you are building a relationship for the long term; it's also that you need help. I mean, if you don't tell them what you need, how do you know that they could offer you? So that's the case that we do. So I call them up, explain to them what we need. If they can help, I'm really happy to accept the help; that's how we grow our company as well.

Marta G. Zanchi 31:35
Very well said. We try to teach all our founder CEOs to send a monthly newsletter to all of your shareholders, all of your investors. And the first thing that should be is, "This is how you can help." And it's so powerful. If you do it consistently, month after month, people actually are able to give value in ways that you wouldn't expect. Even your tiniest shareholder who put 50k into the company six years before, when it was still a spin-off, they are your first...

Christina Vallgren 32:03
believers. You have to exactly call them out one by one.

Marta G. Zanchi 32:08
Very well said. All right, let's speak about attributes, and let's focus on the darkest moment of the company and try to run an experiment with you. I want you to think about what are the best attributes of your favorite investors in these deepest, darkest moments of the company's life.

Christina Vallgren 32:30
Since I'm sitting here with Marta, I don't know whether I have a choice. I think the trust is a very important thing. As I said, before we went through COVID, we went through a hard time to raise funds. I think the darkest moment is that, okay, the runway is getting shorter, and there's money that needs to come in as fast as possible. The trust from the investors is extremely important, and also the support from your existing investors is crucial. So that was how our favorite investors helped us; all of them helped us to bridge the dark moment. Luckily, in the end, last year, we managed to raise our Series A of about 9.5 million US dollars. So we are super happy to get out of the hard moment. Yeah, we are looking forward to better times to come.

Marta G. Zanchi 33:26
I remember it was a monumental effort. Okay, I have one. I want to add a favorite quality of the best investors in the darkest moment of a company. This was actually something told to me by Alice, the CEO of a company in the UK. She gave me what is now my favorite attribute. I'm so proud. I literally wrote it on a post-it and I put it on the wall at Nina Capital next to my desk: unflappable. This is such a difficult journey. It's full of changes. It's full of learning; things never go as expected. You just, you know, you have that North Star. This is my vision. I want to improve healthcare. I want to improve Positron Emission Tomography. I'm going to make this procedure safer. I'm going to increase the quality of care. This is my North Star. But everything else is so rapidly changing. If you don't have people, your investors on board who are truly unflappable—this is such a British thing to say, I love it—but I think I found that is consistently one of the best qualities of the investors that I have worked with when investing in a company: the ability to look at change in the face and say, "I'm not scared of you. I am on a mission." And that keeps going. All right, so what are some of the worst attributes instead? Now I ask you about the best attributes. I want you to tell us what are the worst attributes of your investors in the darkest moment of the company, and what did you learn?

Christina Vallgren 35:00
I think I have... I mean, there's always a bad moment and a good moment in a startup. I think a startup is never an easy business. I think you have limited funds, you have limited money, and also limited resources to do things. Sometimes I used to work at CERN; we have a budget of billions to build whatever single machine, and we can make it because the money is limited. But in a startup, you have to calculate the time, you have to calculate the money, calculate the people, and also all this money that you bring to the company; you have to find them as well. So that's very hard. It's hard for everyone, every startup. I admire every founder who takes the decision to make a business by their own. It's really admirable, including myself; I have to give some credit to myself too. So I mean, the darkest moment—a bad example—I think every company has one. I would say that when things go wrong, most of the time, people start to point fingers, then it's bad. I think that it's the same thing that you really, as CEO, as Director of the board, you need to manage the conflict. So that moment is when people start to lose trust; that's very important. But I think to solve this, most of the time, in 95% of the time, I mean, the choice is because of bad communication. I think once you start communicating transparently, a lot of things can be solved. Sometimes you just don't understand each other's motivations. I mean, once you put it right on the table, don't hold the cards too close to the chest, then you understand each other, and you can solve a lot of problems.

Marta G. Zanchi 36:55
And yet you see this over and over again. I think it's just people get scared; everything is going to hell. Things are difficult. Nothing is going as expected. The darkest of moments, and then fear happens. And those are the times in which you get to know your investors the best. I told you before we started on the stage to speak. This is one of my favorite quotes from one of my favorite boxers of all time: it's what you do with the fear that matters. And everybody gets scared in these moments, even your investors. But some of them react in a positive, constructive way; some of them become controlling, and then fear becomes an opportunity to erode trust because everybody is trying to get a hold of a situation and find a way through it without fostering the culture of communication and support and collaboration that has gotten us this far. So yeah, well, we have gone very dark. So I'm going to switch it and think about happy times, actually, because everybody talks about what investors can or should not do during dark times. But what do you think your investors are when you think about the attributes of your favorite investors during the happiest times of the company, and what other behaviors instead that you see in your investors that you say, "This is what I expect my investors to do when things go well"?

Christina Vallgren 38:27
Now we are talking about happy times, right? Attributes...

Marta G. Zanchi 38:29
of your investors, favorite and not so favorite in happy times.

Christina Vallgren 38:34
I think in happy times, when everything goes well, I think that's when you don't see so many problems, so most of the time, yeah, there's no conflict itself if it's really a happy time. So I think a happy time is a good time.

Marta G. Zanchi 38:59
It's not the time to disappear. Yeah. I mean, that's ridiculous. Sometimes, okay, everything goes well, and nobody is engaged anymore, and preach communications. And then, well, thank you for getting me into this very happy spot. But then, please don't disappear. To me for six months, I still need help. Things are still changing, chugging along, and then sometimes just the relationship breaks just for apathy because everything is going well. So I think founders who do really well, investors who really care, they always show up, bad times, good times, and so...

Christina Vallgren 39:36
It makes sense. Yes.

Marta G. Zanchi 39:39
That's fine. All right, all right. Now let's think about your next financing round. I know you're on the eve of starting a new raise. What kind of support are you seeking from your current investors, existing investors, as you embark on a financing journey in one of the most difficult times of the month?

Christina Vallgren 40:00
I hope that the time will become better. And of course, as many introductions as possible will be very good. Warm introductions, as I was at the panel discussion this afternoon. So everyone, I mean, the panelists discussed about it. I mean, a cold email doesn't really make sense at all. A warm introduction will make so much difference. So that was something I expected from all our existing investors.

Marta G. Zanchi 40:28
I know you'll be tremendously successful, and you need very little help from my help. I'm interested in asking when your new financing round? Where are you taking Terapet? What is your vision for what you will do with this new financing?

Christina Vallgren 40:43
I already said a little bit about our original vision, but today, Terapet is not a company that only focuses on proton therapy. We are building nuclear medicine imaging devices to bring new technologies like theranostics and personalized precision medicine to the next level. So today, we are kicking off our Series B fundraising. The vision for Terapet is that Terapet will become a key player as a nuclear instrument manufacturer in nuclear medicine for every patient's diagnosis and treatment in the near future.

Marta G. Zanchi 41:37
Thank you, Christina; it's inspiring. I'm very privileged to be on the board, by the way. So gosh, I actually am mindful of time. I know we're cutting close to the end of it. So let's try to summarize things a bit. Looking back, what is the one thing, one thing that you recommend people in the audience do, both entrepreneurs and investors, about building very strong investor and founder relationships? One thing.

Christina Vallgren 42:07
Transparent communication.

Marta G. Zanchi 42:09
Transparent communication is so true. You know, at the end of the day, we try to, you know, we... this is extremely difficult. It's a very strange relationship, but at the end of the day, it's just another relationship, actually, if you think about it, longer than the average marriage. And so it feeds upon the same thing that every relationship feeds upon: alignment on a set of core values. In our case, a very strong alignment on what's important that we change in the healthcare industry, that original frustration that you spoke about that has always been the North Star for me. And as long as we are aligned on that one thing that matters, then we can work together on a solution, but only if we continue to feed this relationship with communications, transparency, and just radical candor. I think many people are not capable of that vulnerability, but it applies to any relationship, and it certainly applies to one between investors and founders. Well, I know we have, we're supposed to end in two minutes, so we're going to just have some closing remarks. Hi, Marta, Managing Partner at Nina Capital. It's been a pleasure and an honor to be with Christina along their journey, and now here on the stage. I need to run; I have a flight in two hours. If you want to contact us, please email Marta at nina.capital; it's that simple, or you can chase Yana, Nadine, and Lynn who are here for the rest of the conference. And what about you, Christina? How can people get in touch with Terapet and not miss out on the investment of the year?

Christina Vallgren 43:50
So we are here to kick off our Series B fundraising. We are a company that makes next-generation nuclear imaging technology that will have a huge impact on radiotherapy and also nuclear medicine. So investing in us means investing in the future of precision medicine, and let's bring the technology to the next level, and also see what you treat and treat what you see. Contact us. I have a very long email address, so it's christina.vallgren@terapet.ch, so contact me. I love...

Marta G. Zanchi 44:30
your passion. You're the best. Thank you, Christina. I had so much fun. This is a wrap. Thank you so much, LSI; you've been wonderful. And see you next year.

Christina Vallgren 44:39
Thank you, Marta.