Get creative to deal with funding woes, biotech founders say

FORT COLLINS — If it’s tough to find funding as a new biotechnology/life sciences company on the Front Range, it may be time to put on some skinny jeans and a zip-up sweater and play the Silicon Valley game, said Rose Nash, CEO and founder of Biota Inc. … only partially tongue-in-cheek.

Nash and other biotechnology company leaders and founders discussed funding and how to get it recently at a CEO Roundtable hosted by BizWest at Innosphere Ventures, a startup incubator in Fort Collins. Several company leaders talked generally about how they had received federal Small Business Innovation Research grants in the past. Their discussion comes against the backdrop of the current turmoil in federal funding for research. The Colorado economy relies on federally funded research, which produces $2.3 billion annually and about 12,000 jobs, with federal research labs concentrated in Boulder, Larimer and Jefferson counties. 

Biota, which is based in Boulder, makes molecular diagnostic technology for wastewater testing that helps treatment plants track PFAS chemicals. The per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals increase the risk of some cancers and interfere with the body’s natural hormones. They’re in some common consumer goods and firefighting foam.

“How do I act like the people who are getting funded?” Nash said of her fundraising mindset to others around the table. “It’s getting yourself into the right circles.” 

The group talked about the difficulty of getting funding, but also how they might find ways to stand out to potential funders in a crowded startup market dominated by artificial-intelligence-related companies. A recent Colorado venture-capital report shows that local investors are “almost all software guys,” said Mike Freeman, CEO of Innosphere Ventures. 

As a result, biotechnology and life-science startups need to get creative with where they look for funding, whether founders go outside of Colorado or search for funders who typically didn’t put their money into biotechnology, said Lyndsey Linke, CEO and co-founder of SiVEC Biotechnologies Inc. in Fort Collins. The drug-delivery platform company can deliver biologics, which are medications made from living organisms such as proteins. The company came out of research in a Colorado State University biotechnology program, Linke said.

“There’s a lot of money and deep pockets in Colorado,” Linke said.

Maria Navas-Moreno said she has gone to Boston to pitch her cancer-diagnostics company, IllumifyDx Inc., to potential new funders.

Because funding is so competitive within the industry, it’s important to help each other, said Izi Stoll, CEO and founder of Numiera Therapeutics Inc. in Fort Collins, an Innosphere client company that has a treatment for brain tumors. Lack of funding now and in the future is likely to hurt the pipeline of people willing to go into biotechnology research for the next five to 10 years, she said.

“We need to find ways to support each other,” Stoll said. “Are we actually talking to each other and using the resources we have?”

As one bright spot on the horizon, biotechnology and life-science companies should look to unconventional spots where federal funds may be available, Nash said. She pointed to a recent Department of Defense funding call she saw related to breast cancer research.

“It’s very easy to get very doom and gloom however, … I’m thinking about it as a shift in grant-making,” Nash said.

BizWest’s CEO Roundtables are sponsored in Northern Colorado by Berg Hill Greenleaf Ruscitti LLLP, Elevations Credit Union and Plante Moran.

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