In 2024, global venture capital funding in biotech hit $21.4B, surging by almost 33% compared to 2023 and surpassing pre-pandemic levels. This is a clear signal to all biotech companies: Venture capitalists are confident in investing in the industry, and this is your golden hour to raise funds.
Part of my work as a founder of NANOBOT Group focuses on helping biotech businesses from the EU and the US secure investments. This programmatic text is based on years of work in the field, talking to founders and investors, and learning from each communication.
Here, I explain the most common mistakes that many biotech companies make and provide the best practices we use for NANOBOT clients to secure funding.
Often, founders do not know all the aspects of the fundraising process, which is one of the biggest challenges these organizations face while searching for investors. Most founders are passionate scientists who want to drive innovation. Their thinking process revolves around hypotheses, experiments, analysis, and reporting, all in search of knowledge.
Meanwhile, most investors think in a very different way. They care about their portfolio and return on investment. This mismatch in worldviews makes it hard for biotech founders to raise funds despite the perfect science behind their products or services.
Many biotech founders without investment experience think of fundraising as a single event. As a result, they don’t have a long-term plan that spans several years and encompasses different stages of biotech startup development.
This leads to situations where money drains faster than the next investment comes, causing disruption in business and product development.
One of the most common mistakes that founders make is relying on lawyers’ networks and so-called “warm introductions.” Biotech founders often look down on cold outreach as salesy and disruptive tactics. However, if your company is in the EU, you might find yourself in a situation where “warm outreach” has brought you only one VC, and they don’t see your company as their “sweet spot.”
Some of our clients attributed this approach to their desire to focus on quality rather than quantity. What they really missed out on was awareness.
Reaching more people increases your chances of finding the right ones. Besides, what you also need to understand is the communication behind the scenes. Investors talk to each other, and active outreach can make them start talking about you.
Effective communication with VCs (Venture Capitalists) is the key to successful fundraising. In science, “right communication” is a 100-page research paper with a detailed overview of methodology, a step-by-step report of the research, statistical analysis, and tons of industry-specific jargon. While it’s essential for science, it is overwhelming for people outside your field of research.
Investors don’t care where you got mice for experiments, how many pancreatic cells successfully regenerated during the trials, or what other studies you cited in your paper.
They need to see the marketability of your product, i.e., how many organizations (or end users) will buy your product/service once it hits the market.
While it might be perfectly clear to other scientists in your field by just looking at your abstract, it’s not clear at all to VCs who cannot tell an axon from a dendrite.
From our experience at Nanobot, writing medical content that works for investor communication and marketing purposes means balancing science and engagement, explaining complex things in a simple way, and, above all, the ability to show market value.
Many founders try to raise capital through their lawyer’s network or the scientific community. They’re often rejected because they’re simply not in the investor’s “sweet spot.”
Because many founders avoid actively going after VCs, they end up with what they can get via their network, which is rarely a good match. Without profound research into investors and their portfolios, it’s hard to tell which of them will be interested in your venture right now or in the upcoming months.
From my experience, in certain cases, it’s undisclosed information that is only revealed when you start conversations with investors and ask them specific questions. NANOBOT usually collects such information over an extended period to help our clients target investors who are a good match.
Learn how NANOBOT helped a Swiss-based biotech secure strong interest, secure two NDAs, and set up 10 high-value meetings, including with participants from the J.P. Morgan 2025 Conference, in 6 weeks:
Below is a list of seven best practices that biotech companies should use in their outreach to VCs. I created this list based on my experience.
Investor outreach is about process and timing. Founders who build relationships with investors early on and have a well-thought-out strategy are able to secure better terms during fundraising, while retaining more control and gaining momentum for their business.
Pro Tip: Start talking to VCs at least six months before you need money. It will give you the necessary time to research potential investors, prepare communications, and conduct outreach hassle-free.
Want to start early but lack experience and expertise for efficient outreach? NANOBOT is here to help. We created several marketing bundles for biotech companies like yours seeking to raise funding. You can pick the bundle that matches your current business needs.
Transform Your Fundraising with NANOBOT
Similar to biotech research, fundraising needs a long-term strategy. Think about things like:
We’ve already talked about how biotech founders can get too technical when they reach out to VCs or pitch their idea. Another common mistake is being too generic with your messaging.
Here’s an example of a message you can find on far too many websites: "First-in-Class Therapeutics to Treat Cancer."
VCs pay attention to the impact your product can make. Focus on:
Create a database of VCs. Study their recent investments and the criteria they used to choose companies they invest in. We usually research their website and portfolio to understand which companies they are interested in. We also teach biotech startups how to use a CRM to store necessary data and interaction history. This information will be useful in the future to build relationships with investors.
Once you’ve created your database, segment VCs by geography, portfolio, investment focus, investment stage, whether they are open to becoming lead investors, and the actual amount they are willing to invest. Identify their current “sweet spot.” This will help you create more personalized outreach.
Cold outreach works. And it’s not as “salesy” as you might think. The best messaging is actually focused on the needs of your recipients (that’s where investor research comes in handy).
Pro tips:
Reach out to potential investors via LinkedIn or set up an appointment at an upcoming conference.
Outreach is a funnel. Only a small percentage of VCs will be ready to meet you. Most will be filtered out during the process. The more VCs you approach, the more qualified conversations—and signed NDAs (hopefully)—you will secure by the end. A signed NDA is a strong signal of interest from a VC and often the moment of truth.
If they continue the conversation after reviewing your confidential data and results, it’s a good sign you’re on the right track toward an investment.
Personalization is the key to successful outreach to VCs. Start with their name in the email subject line and body of the email. Talk about their recent investments and how their portfolio can benefit from your company.
At NANOBOT, we use our expertise and experience to ensure your emails are highly personalized and relatable to each potential investor. We also have a methodology and IT tools to guarantee secure email delivery and avoid domain blocking or getting blacklisted, which is often the case if cold outreach is done wrong.
A simple CRM will automate your outreach, streamlining your processes. As we mentioned earlier, reaching out to more VCs is paramount to your success. Automation will help you save time when you want to reach out to 50+ investors over a short period. Remember that each outreach campaign includes several emails in a sequence, follow-ups, and back-and-forth conversations with VCs. That’s a lot to process, and automation solutions can really help.
With modern outreach tools, you can plan and implement complex personalized campaigns for a large number of recipients. These solutions will minimize the risk of human error pertaining to manual outreach while enabling you to build complex sequences and maintain a high level of personalization. Finally, these tools will retain the data about each VC and each interaction with them so that you can use it in your next funding round.
When I talked about assigning a dedicated team to conduct outreach, I understand that in many biotech companies, this task falls on the shoulders of the founder. I’ve been in such a position myself, raising funds for InvivoCloud.com in 2023. Personally, I really liked researching VCs, reaching out to them, setting up appointments, and doing the talking. I was never fazed by rejection and didn’t perceive it as a loss of my precious time. That is not always the case for people with a scientific outlook on the world.
That’s why I always suggest that founders of biotech companies hire NANOBOT. We have the expertise—and we’ve built detailed profiles of VC firms over time by actively reaching out and gathering their feedback.
We know which investors are more likely to be interested in funding companies like yours, based on real conversations and ongoing market intelligence.
Ready to Build VC Outreach that Drives Fundraising?
Andrii Koniukh is Co-founder of NANOBOT Group, an award-winning full-cycle digital marketing agency for biotech companies in the EU and the USA. He connects startups, consultants, and investors, building networks and creating databases that attract critical funding for biotech projects.