Versant ventures east - the temperature's rising in Montreal!

The Bio International Convention just wrapped up in San Diego, CA this past week, and it sure was a blur of keynote speeches, non-stop partnering meetings, social mixers, and a touch of the World Cup thrown in for good measure! This event is traditionally where even a lot of Canadian institutions choose to make big announcements, and 2014 was no exception, with Versant making a big splash back here in Quebec with their exciting news. 

Versant Ventures, a global life science investment powerhouse with over $1.5B under management, announced the creation of a new biopharma incubator here in Montreal, to take advantage of the considerable opportunity that both academic excellence and drug discovery know-how in the province represent. Versant has nucleated Inception Sciences Montreal with the intent of creating various start-up companies that can deliver candidates to fill the gaps in big pharma pipelines, and accelerating the whole process of research-to-commercialisation. 

It's great news for the province, and we at AmorChem sure don't need to be convinced of either the opportunity that exists in Quebec or the current advantage of getting in early on the deal. "The early bird gets the worm", as the saying goes, and we invest exclusively in early stage discovery projects that we incubate in the laboratories of academic institutions and research centres, since our launching in 2011. The major difference between us and Inception Sciences would be that we intentionally avoid the start-up route, choosing to offload to pharma earlier in the process, for a variety of reasons some of which will be discussed a little further below. 

Peppi Prasit, CEO and co-founder of Inception Sciences, is no stranger to Quebec and has noted recently that he spent 15 years here in the province, working alongside serious drug discovery/development talent at Merck, and he is very aware of the expertise resident in the province. We also have something in common, in that we too appreciate that ex-Merck expertise and indeed formed NuChem around a team of their medicinal chemists! Inception Sciences views Quebec as an under-valued equivalent to the Bay Area on the west coast or the Boston biotech hub on the east coast, and Prasit has already eyed certain institutions that "we would love to develop relationships with".  

Versant has been very active in Canada in the past year, launching Inception Sciences Vancouver and Blueline Biosciences at the MaRS discovery district in downtown Toronto. The Vancouver operation has partnered with Bayer and is focused on retinal diseases, while the biotech incubator in Toronto has already partnered with Celgene and has a focus on oncology and inflammation. This latest venture in Montreal completes a Canadian sweep from west to east, and adds a third and powerful component to their drug discovery engine.

They are not going it alone either, and have rallied support from large institutional investors here in Quebec, including FTQ, BDC and local fund-of-funds giant, Teralys Capital. Cedric Bisson, venture partner at Teralys, was quick to offer support of the move by Versant (including a $25M commitment) as outlined below. 

"We are excited to actively contribute to the launch of Inception Sciences in Quebec. Versant Ventures, a leading global venture capital firm, excels with its unique access to large global pharmaceutical companies, and its presence in our ecosystem should forge stronger links between Quebec and key international industry and investment decision makers. Furthermore, Versant Ventures' recognised expertise in medical devices will strengthen our ability to develop and commercialise our entrepreneurs' innovations in this field." 

This enthusiasm was matched by BDC, as well as FTQ who themselves are a limited partner in Teralys Capital, the largest fund-of-funds in Canada.

"Through its new direct investment in Versant Ventures, along with its support as a limited partner in Teralys, FTQ continues its efforts to expand the number of life science investment funds active in Quebec. This investment team's track record, extensive network, operational expertise, along with its unique skills in starting businesses and its collaborative business model with pharmaceutical companies, make it a valuable partner for the Fonds, which has been consistently investing in life sciences over many years. We are pleased to see Versant launch an operational Inception Sciences unit in Quebec. Inception will also take advantage of locally existing talent and infrastructure.", said Alain Denis, Senior Vice-President (New Economy) of FTQ. 

It's all very positive for the local life science ecosystem and economy, notwithstanding the fact that the biotech start-up model has already been tried here before, and ground to a halt in the crash of 2008/9. Certainly, things will have to be handled differently if companies are to be kept alive long enough to generate a real return on investment, and/or actually achieve some degree of sustainability. If there is something productive that one can take out of the failures experienced in the creation of the previous biotech hub here, it has to be that previous mistakes have provided teachable moments and that they will not be repeated. 

At the very least, these new companies will need to have a unified board with a singular vision, and not the previous squabbling investor syndicates of the bad old days, who began the disagreements seemingly the day after the financing was closed, and eternally thereafter. Equivalently, the management of such new companies have to actually be truly competent collaborators, working with the board, not against them, and carrying the vision and aspiration of that board into their offices, each and every day. Gone are the days of the stereotypic mercenary CEO and confounding CSO holding their companies to ransom, making themselves richer in the process while nothing even close to a commercialisable asset was being developed. 

For now at least, AmorChem avoids the whole biotech company option, and we work hard at nurturing our various candidate assets where they seem to better belong, for now, i.e. in the skilled hands and labs of our academic partners. Yes, of course, it remains to be proven whether we can take such a project that may only have seen, say, a $500,000 investment, and turn it into a very acceptable exit and ROI by partnering or doing a deal with big pharma. We remain very optimistic about that possibility, however all I will say for now is - watch this space!

That's it from me today, it's a glorious Sunday morning as the thermometer above clearly shows, and if it's already above 35 degrees Celsius then we better make that Bolivian Black Magic dark roast an iced coffee! ;)

Hullabaloo from Halifax!

This past week I was in Halifax, Nova Scotia, attending the second annual Atlantic Venture Forum, which brought together the best, boldest and most innovative emerging and established IT, cleantech and life sciences companies in Atlantic Canada. The event promised two days of engaging, insightful presentations from entrepreneurs, panel sessions with investors (including myself) from across Canada and the East Coast U.S., as well as compelling keynote speakers - it did not disappoint!

The first thing that struck me, in clear contrast to our situation here in Quebec, is how company-centric the Maritimes currently are; while here at home we focus intentionally on nurturing early stage assets for longer in founder laboratories to develop them sufficiently to attract a pharma partner/acquirer, thus avoiding the whole company situation completely. There are a variety of reasons for that, most of which would take an entire blog to elaborate on, but certainly it is a much less expensive way to go and one that involves considerably less headaches as well!

There were some very interesting life science companies presenting at the forum, but we also saw opportunities ranging from new online shopping apps tailored specifically for men to software designed to make the setting up and operation of large scale music festivals more efficient. It truly was a melting pot of various disciplines and entrepreneurs and investors and there was a definite buzz in the room during the presentations, and also out in the coffee area more or less at all times. 

But when things are running too smoothly, there is always someone who gets uncomfortable with all the back-patting and self-satisfaction, and this year that person was none other than Paul Singh, of the aptly titled Disruption Corporation. Mr. Singh is the founder of Disruption Corporation which provides tools, research and advisory services to corporations, angel investors and venture capital firms, and he is also an investor via the Crystal Tech Fund. He was on an entrepreneur panel with a theme of how to get from seed stage to the elusive Series A finance round.

Clearly a fan of all things disruptive, Paul Singh must have felt the panel session he was sitting in on was too cosy and nice, so he decided to liven things up, considerably! From out of nowhere we got treated to an expletive-laden rant about the problems of Canadian business, starting from the fact that by being Canadian, alone, is in and of itself a disadvantage because we are too nice, how founders are not capitalistic enough, how we sell off assets way too cheaply, and how we mollycoddle start-ups in incubators for much too long instead of kicking them out onto the street to live or die. 

Needless to say, the room bristled. While probably a lot of us agreed with at least some of the points he made, it felt totally unnecessary to drop in so many F-bombs along the way particularly as the average age in the room was definitely way above what  might be typical of other start-up forums he attends. I am not a prude, and on top of that I am Irish, so such language does not offend nor shock me in any way, but you know, if even one person was insulted then that probably is one person too many. I think that all of the points he made could have been made just as forcefully without the expletives, and no one in the room would have minded. While the F-bomb does provide emphasis, the English language is rich enough to make the point without resorting to expletives every chance one gets.

But again, there are a couple of points that come to mind out of his performance. Firstly, and somewhat reassuringly, while he did underline the stereotypical aspects of being Canadian, I am sure I was not alone in the room in thinking just how stereotypically American he is! Secondly, he had said something during the panel about "notability" or "notoriety" being as important as actual success, and that people should travel more to various forums and build some momentum around themselves. He's undoubtedly a very clever guy -a classic agent provocateur - and he knows very well that disruptive contributions do as much for "notability" as disruptive technologies do to changing our world. It wasn't long before the media got wind of it, and talked some more about - you guessed it - Paul Singh!

Entrevestor picked up on it in their blog, referring to him as "foul-mouthed" to which Singh hilariously responded on Twitter claiming that he had not been that bad. I guess we don't want to hear him on a bad day, then! One of the funniest moments in the meeting came via Ray Muzyka, an angel investor with ThresholdImpact, who had to follow-on from Singh's lecture. When asked what his comments were, he stated that while he might have agreed with a lot of what Paul said, he thought he might have framed it (a bit) differently! The room erupted with laughter and even clapping, and the tension was gone. 

Paul Singh was a Partner at 500 Startups, a four-year-old "super angel" fund headquartered in Mountain View, California and has overseen investments in over 500 companies across some 35 countries - so he knows what he's talking about, no question.  More of a surprise to me is the fact that he is currently serving as an Entrepreneur-in-Residence with the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. Maybe I missed something, because this would indicate that the White House has loosened up considerably under Obama, if dropping in F-bombs to speeches is now sanctioned for White House ambassadors?! What's next, Obama himself using expletives when discussing the Republicans? That would be something worth watching, for sure!

In any case, it was a very cool gathering of emerging start-ups and growth stage companies, alongside us investors, and I think it's probably true to say that there was a little something for everyone present, and not least that included the stellar catering provided by Taste of Nova Scotia who did the region proud with tasty selections from both land and sea. The fact that the World Cup was on every evening on the big screens in the hotel bar-restaurant also made keeping up with the soccer very easy, including the shocking losses of England to Uruguay and Italy to Costa Rica,, respectively.

All in all, the forum was a big success and even though we at AmorChem have exclusively invested here in Quebec, to date, our eyes were opened to the wealth of opportunities coming out of Atlantic Canada universities and research centres, and we are thinking about finding a way to add one or two out-of-province investments to our portfolio. In the meantime, it's a lovely summer morning and I have a date with a large mug of Emperor's Blend Dark Roast and  a chaise longue out on the terrace, so, that's it from me today!  

Starting the week with a great white - is it "Shark Week" yet?!

This video today of a great white shark half as long as the boat it was attacking near Cape May on the South Jersey coast was fascinating, and was surely reminiscent of a cinematic experience that seemingly touched us all - "Jaws". These fearsome creatures have a way of getting under our skin very easily, not least due to the certain death that this huge mouth represents! 

This video got me thinking of a TV event that is rapidly becoming as key a part of summer as the World Cup currently being played out on screens around the world - we are of course talking about "Shark Week" on the Discovery Channel! In 2013, we went right to the top of the marine food chain as they brought in none other than, wait for it, yes, Megalodon! It's one thing to be on holidays in early August, but another thing entirely when one realises that it coincides with "Shark Week"; a very happy coincidence!

It was a real thrill that they decided to kick it off with then newly surfaced evidence of Megalodon cutting a boat in half off Cape Town in South Africa, and physical details showing that it could not have been a whale slapping onto the top of the boat; rather, this boat was cut in half from the bottom of the boat, ripping it apart, and no doubt that the four bodies spilling out of it fell right into some extremely frightening dentition. 

Speaking of dentition, fossil remains of Megalodon teeth have documented that they were often as long as seven inches in diagonal length, which gives you a scary idea of the size of the animal. It is estimated that this giant of the seas grew as long as some 60-70 feet in length, making it unquestionably one of the most dominant and foreboding vertebrate predators that ever existed. Of course, it is believed that Megalodon became extinct 1-2 million years ago, and the great whites that remain today are simply smaller relatives of it - but who knows?

The boat that was torn apart in April, 2013 did not provide any answers other than that it was struck from beneath by something huge that could only have been going after it in a predatory fashion, and given the sheer size of Megalodon and its capacity to bite a whale's tail off, well, a large boat in dark water could appear to be the form of a whale to a hunting monster such as Megalodon. 

Look down the gullet of this monster and tell me you don't think it could bite a chunk off a small boat and cause some serious damage! Megalodon was a fierce predator and had it evolved onto land, well, I am not sure we would be here today. The experts say that even Tyrannosaurus rex would have been no match for Megaladon, well, apart from being a perfect match on its dinner plate beside a fistful of salad in the form of a few lush trees!

Sadly, the documentary that summer Sunday night provided no firm proof that Megalodon still lurks deep down in the unexplored virgin territories of the lowest ocean floors, but that's the way it should be. Something that is a combination of classified as extinct and an urban (marine) myth should be frustratingly hard to find! We haven't found the Loch Ness monster either, yet we all know it's down there, somewhere, right?! And the lads of "Finding Bigfoot" talk about ol' squatchy as if he was their next door neighbour, so he has to exist, right?!

Scientists discover new species all the time, and even have found living fossils of species believed to be already extinct, such as the feared giant monster Octopus species that mythically terrorised mariners through the ages, but actually existed! What if a very select few Megaladon still roam the ocean floors, surfacing to grab a great white for a snack now and then, or on the very rare occasions that their hunger becomes desperate due to lack of food, they surface and tear down whatever looks big and tasty enough?

Well, we won't know today, that's for sure. Only time will tell, and as scientists, of course we all need physical proof of the existence of Megalodon, but given some of the strange occurrences and sightings on radar, there appears to be something huge down there that we don't understand. We are prone to hate sharks, perhaps in part due to their ferocity and reputation as total killing/eating machines, but as humans I also think we are programmed to find their very faces to be the physical representation of pure evil. It's en evil, twisted, dangerous face with the coldest eyes in nature, and historically man has simply wanted to kill it. 

But we have come to understand them better and there is a very refreshing new tone to shark fishing contests in the US today - they catch the sharks, weigh and measure them, then return them back to their home. Now that's a huge shift in our ongoing evolution with these remarkable (and remarkably scary) creatures - who knows if it will come back to bite us some day, quite literally!

You can't beat some evolutionary entertainment, and "Shark Week" always provides that in abundance, so bring it on in 2014! It brings whole new meaning to the expression "sleeping with the fishes", which people on that boat above would be doing now if that beast had gotten its way! On that note I shall return to the solidity of my terrace planks, and sip a Californian Chiller Triple Espresso Dark Chocolate iced coffee, while staring out into the cityscape and seeing killer sharks everywhere. 

They are real, too, but sadly in the city they come in human form! ;) 

Link in, turn off, tune out!

                                    

Among the wave of internet companies and social media outlets that have arrived onto the scene in recent times, LinkedIn has enjoyed a fairly privileged status given that it strictly had a lot more to do with careers and job hunting/status than the others. The new social media for the employment business, if you will. It wasn't just for fun, this is my career, people!

LinkedIn was serious business mostly for employees initially, not least because employers were way behind on anything social media, and initially, old school executives balked at the idea of using the internet to either advertise a job never mind actually hunt/screen candidates there. It was all so public, somehow. Especially for activities that many companies still often prefer to keep private.

All that changed with the pervasion (you might call it invasion!) of social media into business in general, with old school, old-fashioned marketers squeezed out by the brave new breed of at least semi-trained internet-savvy professionals. I use the term "semi-trained" purposefully, because there were no rules, it was a free for all, and there are still a lot of people out there who, because they set up a Facebook page, and bleat all day on Twitter, feel that they are hip and maybe even can actually call themselves social media gurus. The dreaded lesser-spotted social media web crawling spider-like species!

Opportunistically, such types took great advantage of the evident fear in the faces of executives everywhere, suddenly faced with the pressure of initiating social media campaigns for their brands, and managed to bilk companies out of considerable monies to promote them on media that no one was comfortable with using due to even less understanding of how they were supposed to be used. While social media have served a role, the announcement by General Motors that they were yanking their ad campaigns on Facebook said volumes - the company made public the fact that such promotion was not impacting the number of cars sold.  

Anyway, now LinkedIn has become all grown-up - employers, headhunters and job-seekers alike all co-exist happily (really?!) under one virtual roof,  and LinkedIn even went public a while back. Like Facebook, the valuation was either "rich" (if one is being kind) or "ridiculous" (if one is being real) with their market cap being somewhere around $8-9B. I find it to be staggeringly optimistic, not least as that number represents at least 20X their revenues for 2011, for example. I don't see anywhere near that kind of valuation. But you can't blame 'em for riding the wave, right?

One of the earliest mistakes various levels of people made was linking (for want of another word!) all of their social media accounts, so everything they spouted on Twits or FB would also appear on their professional LinkedIn page. While this may have been fine for a senior executive (read, "older") who only ever used social media for his company's work, it was not fine for almost all employees, especially the dumb ones.

Even if you separate your social media presence from your employer's, they can still scan your activity and disapprove of it - but at least you ain't "linked"and "synced". Conversely, if in order to appear professionally cool, you want to have your employer's way cooler brand on your Twits or FB descriptor, then accept the price for doing so, and keep the message aligned with their brand, not yours. Make a choice, people, because you cannot easily do both.

So, frankly, LinkedIn should have nothing to do with employee FB and Twits accounts, in most cases. However, in order to keep up with the others, LinkedIn has encouraged thought leaders (and now anyone who thinks they have something relevant to say) to promote themselves on the site, and share their tweets, blogs and other emissions on LinkedIn as well as on all the other sites they already spout on. I find it redundant, personally, in all but the most rare of examples. LinkedIn was not meant to be about reading so-and-so's blog post - I have his blog for that! I don't need to read so-and-so spouting about her brand strategy on LinkedIn, as I can see it on heir website and FB page and blog. LinkedIn was designed to be for the job seeker, the employee, and the employer promoting their company as a great place to work. 

Lines are getting too blurry again, and LinkedIn has started to get a bit too "social media" and a lot less functional as a professional career and skills presentation site. But frankly, it has already become dysfunctional and abused, to the point where someone's number of connections is almost meaningless to anyone seriously looking for quality individuals. Just like their kids' Twits and FB pages, the aging, graying executives have suddenly tuned in and turned on to LinkedIn and have started their abuse (based on their seniority) of the "connections" system. 

This is something which has caused many of us to simultaneously "drop out". After years of having a two line LinkedIn presence with no photo, they suddenly appear interested in you, seeking to connect, so that they can subsequently hoover up your contact list. It's way easier than sitting in an office trying to remember all the people they might have done business with or brushed shoulders with over the years, and such activity was encouraged by the LinkedIn system. Once your contact list has been sucked up, they move onto the next "victim" until they are at the magical 500+ connections level - "hey people, I've arrived!" All of those who vainly hoped this new high level connection was going to lead to a new job were routinely disappointed. It's all about the "me-myself-and-I", and surely not about you.

There are essentially four main species on LinkedIn: your real life friends (who in many cases might not be appropriate for this particular site); people who you (have) work(ed) with (who therefore are truly colleagues, but may/may not be actual "friends"); people who know someone on your contact list and can therefore scan you as a new "recruit" (also known as the "scavengers"); and last, but by all means least, the most annoying sub-type of scavenger -headhunters. Incongruously, they are always sniffing around you when you are in a job, yet don't want to lose 30 precious seconds on you when you are out of one!

For sure, LinkedIn is no real place for real friends, unless they work in the same functional area as you do, and we have FB and Twits berths for them. People one works/has worked with are truly eligible and even if they are not our biggest fans, or we theirs, they fit into the deal. We have worked together and we can apparently support the credentials of the other. That works. Notwithstanding the fact that someone that has been adversarial in the workplace is probably a spy, and/or may even copy/clone your unique promotional style. But what can you do? Anyone watching reasonably closely gets to see who is the organ grinder, and who is the monkey. 

The scavengers are the bottom feeders that are ruining the site. The second you make a new connection, following a meeting or conference, and all of their contacts see you are newly added, the shameless among them arrogantly send you an invite to connect, even when you have no idea who they are. LinkedIn used to encourage this behavior just like FB used to encourage sharing your private information and photos with anyone who wanted it, but they have changed their tone somewhat. On LinkedIn today, when you ignore/delete an invite, something which I find really interesting is that there is now a pop-up which classifies the reason for so doing as "I don't know this person". Wow! So therefore, we are not supposed to be inviting connections or accepting invites from people we don't know and never met?! Now there's a new concept!

It actually has become one small step up from spam. After making a new connection recently, with someone I do know, I received an invite from a senior colleague of that person with a truly ridiculous (if not downright nauseating) supposedly "personal" (yet generic) invite that read "I want to connect with you on LinkedIn, and look forward to meeting you again!"-  this, from someone who I have never met? It's terrifically insulting! But it's assumed on LinkedIn that people are so desperate to be known, to be loved, to be "connected", that they will add numbers to another's bigger pile, in the vain hope of getting there themselves or getting that new job.

One needs to value one's own self. As opposed to virtual self-aggrandizement, by the meaningless vacuuming up of people who one doesn't know, doesn't care for, will never help and probably will never even meet - all to make one look hot, FB style, because you have bigger numbers than most, or than your peers. It's high school FB stuff for supposed grown-ups. One needs to refuse to be a scavenger and to deny these scavengers access to one's page, and moreover, or particularly, access to one's real colleagues. They only want you for what you can give them - never the other way around. It's insulting and demeaning, and extremely selfish. 

"Ask not what your connections can do for you, but ask what you can do for your connections!"

Hold yourself in higher esteem. Don''t be yet another social media sheep. Following the (misguided) herd. Be yourself, be proud of who you are, and value your contact list highly. It is your professional currency. It should never be given away easily, not least to some socioprofessional climber, or even to a more senior person who almost wants to intimidate you into allowing them access to your full profile and list. The "smart" thinking is: "Well, they are quite powerful, so I've got no choice, right?"

Wrong. One always has a choice. You increase your value by so doing, in many ways. Sure, it may take longer for you to reach some magic number that fits you, but trust me, the really smart people know what "500+ connections" usually means. That is, that it's usually meaningless. It's completely image over content. But isn't that what LinkedIn has become, right now? More BS about how "great" you are, and how "popular" you also are, because of how many "friends" or followers you appear to have?! It aligned with the FB model, which was a serious error.

It's becoming the kids'  FB page for grown-ups, without the bullying and scratching. Theoretically. Those of you with individuality, personality, uniqueness and talent should invest for the long term, and create a LinkedIn profile and list that has real value and meaning; one that will carry you a lot further in your professional life than the copycat wannabe-guru scavengers and their 500+ connections. I had to laugh when a female colleague who is among my LinkedIn connections, said recently - 

"LinkedIn? You mean match.com for professionals?! It's more of a cruising and stalking site these days, than anything to do with getting a job!"

It's a social media virus that's spreading rapidly, even among your so-called friends and colleagues. The ones who cling to you when you are a success are rarely your real deal, especially as they are often gone when you go down. Do yourself proud, don't be afraid to stand alone, stay above the noise and the mess and the fury, and remain firm in the belief that you will ultimately look stronger than the masses for refusing to follow, as they all do. Having the courage to say "no" has somehow become devalued, having the class to remain somewhat "private" has been made to seem almost weird, and having the smarts to dictate how you use and value the exclusiveness of your online presence is deemed egotistic when it doesn't follow the so-called "rules".

It's laughable! Believe me, one sleeps much better at night for neither being a copycat nor a sheep. The days of the individual are not behind us, and irrespective of the invasiveness of social media (and that now includes LinkedIn in a big way), staying true to oneself is often the best medicine in this selfish, abusive, totally public online life we feel pressured into joining. We are free to decide, and one can have it all.

So by all means LinkIn, but turn off a lot of the public aspects of your online identity that you do not wish to share with the public, and be totally prepared to tune out all the noise and all the pressure/abuse that the sheep foist onto you. When it came to LSD, the mantra was tune in, turn on and drop out, but when it comes to LinkedIn, I say Link in, turn off and tune out! I don't know anyone who ever got a job via LinkedIn, and no one I have asked over the last few years has said that they did. 

Guess what? I just got a brand new shiny job myself while refusing to play the traditional game, or in my opinion, by playing it better, and smarter, and that's proof positive that it still does work! So let's hear it for the individual, who will never become one of the sheep that the marketers dream we all can be. In fact, aren't sheep supposed to be more useful to send us off into dreamland? For sure, by the time you have counted even a fraction of them on LinkedIn, you are already off in la-la land!