Patricia Argeri, Director of the Galician Innovation Agency (Gain), congratulated the promoters of the initiative to create the first Galician venture capital fund dedicated to the life sciences, Bio & Tech Smart Capital, Created by private equity fund manager Nuestro Capital, it emphasized the importance of collaboration between the public and private sectors in enhancing the competitiveness of the productive fabric. Hence, from the economy of Galicia. Gain’s director made the remarks at the close of the fund’s presentation day in Vigo as part of Startup Congress Galicia 2022.
Argiri pointed out that The creation of this fund will make it possible to unite efforts to achieve a common mission: to promote the growth of the biotechnology sector in GaliciaFoster a collaborative ecosystem that supports entrepreneurship and facilitates access to financing for business ventures with the potential for scaling up. The agency director noted that for the ecosystem to grow into the influence exercised by the public sector, the involvement of the private sector must be added.
these These goals are consistent with the priorities of the Galician government in this area: on the one hand, strengthening the biotechnology sector in Galicia, It was defined as a strategy through which the sector unification strategy for the period 2021-2025 is implemented that seeks to position Galicia as a reference region at the international level and, on the other hand, to promote innovative entrepreneurship, with the aim of evaluating the knowledge produced in universities and research centers by promoting the development of projects in phases Early and encouraging the establishment of technology-based companies.
for this part, Thomas Perez, CEO of Noso Capital and Bio & Tech Smart Capital, He stressed that the public sector “did things very well” and made it easier for the biotech sector to be second in Spain in setting up businesses, but It is necessary that “private capital accompanies the development and growth of firms”. “We have incredible potential, but we have to believe it,” he said.
Daniel Prieto, President of Galician Engineering Cluster and General Partner of Bio & Tech Smart Capital, emphasized this. The sector must “decomplicate” because we are “extremely competitive.” In addition, he highlighted that Bio & Tech Smart Capital has an “amazing multidisciplinary team”, featuring distinguished scholars, researchers, entrepreneurs and specialists in private capital management, with allies in the US, UK or Israel.
What is important is the difference.
Javier Sardina, professor of chemistry and serial entrepreneur, emphasized this What is important is that funds specialized in the biotechnology sector have “equipment They are able to understand the science and economic management of companies.” In his opinion, the most important thing is knowledge and “the rest are tools.”
Given his long experience as an entrepreneur, Javier Sardina Galician businessmen urged to remove their “village” and believe they are “citizens of the worldon the same level as others”, to be able to compete in globalized markets.
in this way, Luis Perez, CEO of Gradiant, He explained that “what gives value to the Galician biotech ecosystem is knowledge” and the sector’s maturity has been achieved thanks to the support of the public sector. However, Considers that “there is room for improvement” A “special contribution” is necessary to help promote projects.
Fantastic opportunity
Santiago Dominguez, CEO of Mestrelab and general partner of Bio & Tech Smart Capital, stated that Galicia represents a “fantastic opportunity” For private investors because startup projects and spin off “They have almost no risk”, because “the risk is borne by the public side” with the help of support and support mechanisms for entrepreneurship.
Dominguez He explained that 97% of startups created in the US fail, while the failure rate in Galicia is very low.. As she explained, SMEs “barely have debt, a conservative attitude that slows down enterprise development.”
“We need to speed up the pace of companies so that there are more Zendales. That is the pending topic We need private capital to be activated to transform small and medium enterprises into large companies. They will find projects in the biotech sector, a sector that will grow the most in the coming years and with a level of risk similar to setting up a cafeteria.”