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Alumni Spotlight - Immusoft inks deal with Takeda worth more than $900M
Immusoft, a cell therapy startup that uses patients’ immune cells to make therapeutic proteins that target rare diseases, has inked a $900M deal with its biopharma partner Takeda to work on cell therapies in rare inherited disorders.
Six red flags that send investors running the other way
The use of red flag emojis took social media by storm recently. Extending the sentiment, Biz Journals, San Francisco asked several Bay Area investors for their biggest red flags before they decide to invest.
Propel(x)'s co-founder Swati Chaturvedi was quoted and emphasized the importance of seeing concrete data before deciding to invest.
Stock Dilution in Startup Investing - Good or Bad?
Imagine you know an amazing pastry chef who is famous for her pecan pie but does not have enough money to bake her next batch. The chef proposes a deal with you – if you promise to pay for 30% of the ingredients, she agrees to bake a pie that she will cut into ten slices and agrees that you can eat three of those slices. Simple, right? You pay for 30% of what it takes to make the pie and in return, you get to eat 30% of the end product.
But soon after your agreement with the chef, a storm hits Mexico that wipes out half the national pecan crop, driving up the cost of pecans. The chef realizes she now needs more money to buy the ingredients, so makes an additional deal with five new customers,
promising them one slice each once the baking is done. So, this means the finished pie will now be cut into 15 slices. You will still get to eat three slices, but instead of this being 30% of the whole pie (3/10), it is now only 20% of the pie (3/15).
ICYMI: Non-Dilutive Funding for Deep Tech Startups : How the National Science Foundation Invests
Every year the National Science Foundation (NSF) invests over $200 million to help launch hard-tech startups. The government agency is often the “first money in.” With a deep bench of academics and researchers to aid their evaluation, the NSF is able to evaluate cutting edge technologies to promote and support.
We sat down with Ben Schrag, Senior Program Director for the SBIR/STTR programs and discussed how the NSF looks for technology risk, and what steps the agency takes in supporting early commercialization for deep tech startups.
Propel(x) is a premier digital platform facilitating private venture capital for deep technology startups. Our mission is to
enable investment in technologies that matter
and thus build the next generation of great companies.
