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Comment by rfc | Hacker News Reader

Just adding my own slight perspective here. We launched a bootstrapped genome sequencing facility August last year. With barely any advertising and word of mouth, we're clearing around 8% MoM revenue growth and are forecasting ~$350k-400k in revenue this year.

Biggest problem? We don't have enough float to keep up with demand. There's significant demand in the life sciences & biotech space right now - especially with the confluence of software and bio. It's been very hard to talk to investors because (no offense) they hear life sciences, bio, genetics, etc. and they turn away because it's out of their comfort zone of investing.

If you're an angel or seed investor, I'd highly recommend diving in and learning more around the problems of the space. They are large, lucrative, and have high probability of disruption compared to current status.

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That's awesome to hear, congrats! Ive been starting to hear a lot of interest in genomics / bio-IT from generalist VCs. obviously groups like a16z and 8VC have recognized this opportunity already (and YC is starting to), but anecdotally a lot of other funds are diving into bio-IT. One of the challenges is that the seed environment hasn't matured yet to bridge these companies to VC funding

It's funny, I talk to people about bio and they say "I'm not a scientist, I can't invest here" however they realize they can invest profitably into things like AI without being data scientists / math PhDs. In many ways, bio is no different than any other technical field: learn enough to be dangerous, know how to lean on experts where appropriate, and you can get involved

Completely agree. A lot of the big VCs are investing in the fundamental biology side of it. However, there is so much room for advancements in the equipment, gene panels, automation, lab analytics, etc.

As an example, we just bought a device called an Eppendorf EpMotion 5075. It costs around $20k and looks like it was something I would have built in high school. Exposed wires, slow, insanely expensive parts. Worst of all: there's no API for us to programmatically connect it with other devices in the lab, such as a DNA extractor.

You also hit the nail on the head with the investment mentality. Know enough to be dangerous. Ask "why" to learn more about the problems. And (IMO) most importantly, realize that you don't have to put down $1M as a seed. You'd be shocked at the ROI on just even $50k...

Out of curiosity, what's your business model and customer base? Do you offer sequencing as a service, have proprietary analytics / software, other lab services, experimental design, etc?

We're an all-inclusive service provider (currently), meaning that researchers simply send their samples in and get insights back. We take care of the DNA extraction, sample QC, library prep, sequencing, bioinformatics, and data storage.

There are a couple clients of ours that we're testing our sequencing as a service where we generate monthly contracts and they get the exact same service, protocols, etc. in record turnaround time.

Client base includes companies like Children's National Hospital, UCSD, Pfizer, USDA. Nothing proprietary just yet (except it being really hard) but we're using profits from services revenue to develop IP-driven gene pipelines and informations. Basically specific gene panels and software paired together. We're one of 2 commercial companies in the country offering HLA-Typing which is the same integrated pipeline as described above.

Additionally, we're passively starting to develop high resolution data sets to ingest into a database at some point around specific novel variants, such as HLA Typing, to accelerate research

The end goal is to virtualize the entire lab so that anyone can start research, whether academic of pharmaceutical, from a home office. This means building a software layer that allows them to directly create, design, and implement protocols that interface with the equipment in the lab. So instead of building a $1M lab, you just log in online and run your experiments.

You can think of it as what AWS did to the data center.

Very cool, i work with a lot of CROs but haven't had a need for genomics sequencing yet. In small biotech companies we rely exclusively on these firms as we don't have our own labs, or if so, dont have a genomics core. There has been an explosion in biotech startups using genomics so would imagine there's a lot of demand for this, and you can make good margins if you are a quality and differentiated service provider. I realize you probably already know this but in the spirit of informing people about bio investing figured I'd share :)

Are you in San Diego by chance (just guessing bc UCSD)? I work with a virtual biotech there and we contract out all of our r&d. We don't do genomics but some of our investors have other portfolio companies that might be interested in your services

We're located in Colorado actually. Low rent makes for cheaper rates for our customers.

What's ironic is that even though UCSD has one of the premier genomics cores in the world, their lead time and prices are astronomical. We converted an entire UCSD department from their facility to ours by simply improving speed, price, and turnaround. We're finding that the big facilities have so much overhead that they can ONLY focus on big projects, leaving a huge gap in the market for the smaller guys.

If they're interested, we're happy to have conversations. Our website is: https://www.thesequencingcenter.com We're always looking to connect with other folks who are just annoyed with the general way things are operating.

Awesome, thanks for passing along. We face a lot of issues with lead time for non-genomics applications and if our CRO doesn't have a piece of equipment and we dont have an "in" at ucsd / stanford / berkeley etc, we wait in line. sometimes for months...

will pass your info along, thanks!

How does one start learning about the field - problems, companies etc. I read about immunotherapy back in 2010 but struggled to find companies which were working in this area.

I answered a similar question in this thread but will add a few things if there's an area you already are interested in. Look at the companies in the space that have received lots of funding from good VCs or have exited, and look up their scientific advisory board members. These are thought leaders in particular areas and are often very influential and networked. If you can build relationships with them they can point you to promising companies and proto-companies.

Also dig into the scientific literature (or hire a phd if you don't have a technical background) and connect with leading researchers in the space. Ask them about their work, and the work of competing academics. Do this enough and you'll find interesting science

I feel exactly the same way about Manufacturing. It's a massive industry, there are a ton of viable new technologies on the market, but very very few investors are even looking at the early stage because they don't understand it. I'm blown away at the new technologies I'm seeing.

100% agree. There's a lot of regulatory hurdles in that field but, much like what SpaceX did, if you can find ways to disrupt it, the disruption is 10-100x better than current state.

Could you expand on this at all and/or point me in the direction of where to read up on new manufacturing technologies?

I'm in the additive manufacturing industry, things are really heating up. But there are plenty of other opportunities in related fields that I've barely heard of. Aerospace, medical, defense, auto etc are all driving some big changes in how their parts are made because of new regulations and opportunities.

> If you're an angel or seed investor, I'd highly recommend diving in and learning more around the problems of the space. They are large, lucrative, and have high probability of disruption compared to current status.

Not an angel or seed investor but how does one start to learn about problems in this space?

With the disclaimer that I know zero about bio (or seed investing, for that matter), I imagine it is like any other field: talk to people doing it.

If you live near an area where it is hot, I'm sure there are meetup-ish things or other social mixers of some sort. Otherwise/also, find the online communities where those folks hang out.

Heck, I've cold-called folks a few times when I had clueless questions about their industry. Once someone thought I was a freak, or maybe a scammer, but most times being direct, respectful and not too dumb led to folks humoring me. Now, I'm not suggesting ringing up a random CEO and asking them for an extemporaneous survey of emerging market opportunities, but, especially with startups, generally folks like to talk shop.

The bio space is very large, so the first step is to understand the different types of companies. The major groups are roughly:

- biopharma / therapeutics: the largest and most lucrative sector, but also the most specialized (~$11B venture dollars invested in the US in 2017). Basically companies that develop FDA regulated medicines to treat disease. This has been one of the top performing sectors in all of venture the last few years. It's also the most "different" industry / steepest learning curve if you're coming from a tech background. I wrote a post on the opportunity in the space here: http://newbio.tech/blog/biopharma_opportunity.html

- med tech / diagnostics: accounting for just under $5B in 2017 US venture funding, these deal with medical devices (hip implants, surgical tools, coronary stents etc) as well as diagnostics (ranging from standard blood tests to AI-driven liquid biopsies to detect cancer). Investments here tend to be more doubles and triples than the biopharma homeruns. Reimbursement is a key concern here

- bio-IT: this emerging space has received a lot of hype lately (a16z making a large play here, Verily is also in this category). It is a bit of an amorphous term but concerns opportunities at the intersection of biology, chemistry, software and data analytics. The big opportunity here is using tech to multiply the efficiency / productive of drug development and scientific research

To start learning more, id focus on biopharma, as the opportunity here is massive and really understanding biopharma will help you understand bio-IT. Subscribe to the following news feeds:

-endpoints news -fierce biotech -stat news

When you read about an interesting company, dig deeper. Talk to anyone in your network familiar with the company. Read the scientific literature (and look up all the terms you don't know). Email the academic founders to ask about their work. Email founders of competing companies. Really try to understand the appeal of the investment and the rationale behind the science. It is a steep learning curve but enough reps can get you there

Also, follow Bruce Booths blog at atlas ventures. He is one of the leading seed stage investors and also one of the few life sci VCs who blogs

What's the name of your company and where are you located? Seems like an interesting opportunity. Feel free to send me an email at andrewmbenton at gmail dot com.

Our company is called The Sequencing Center.

https://www.thesequencingcenter.com

We're located in Fort Collins, Colorado which is great for low overhead costs! I'll send you a note. Thanks!

Where do you get dealflow as an independent investor in these things? Seems like incubator demo days and shark tank events are brimming with everything but biotech.

There are a few incubators that focus on bio but even these don't specialize in biopharma (vs diagnostics, med tech, software stuff). Biopharma is where most of the venture money is (over $10B in 2017) but most companies are seeded within VC.

So dealflow is very network driven. Life sci VCs, successful biopharma execs and entrepreneurs and academic key opinion leaders are good sources if they are in your network

Getting to know the cell biology / biochem / bioinformatics community at your local research institution is a good way to find untapped early stage deal flow but to take advantage of this you often need to bring some domain expertise or operational expertise to bear, as a lot of the folks in academia can benefit from operations / industry support. If you can speak at a university event or guest lecture in a class that can be a time-efficient way to get into the flow of things at the institution

Who are your customers? Normal consumers? Academia?

I am actually looking to get my genome sequenced. I am looking to do ~30X and I just want the fastqs. I am a bioinformatician and can do my own analysis. Is that a service you provide?

Our customers are academic, pharmaceutical, and clinical research. We don't do any direct-to-consumer sequencing since we're not currently HIPPA compliant.

We also only have an Illumina MiniSeq which is really designed for bacterial, viral, yeast, and targeted human sequencing. It doesn't have the power to do full WGS however we're working on figuring out how to acquire a NovaSeq.

Hey, I might have some people interested in this type of investment. Sounds really interesting. You can reach me at zachfeldman at gmail.

Awesome, we'd appreciate any connection. I'll reach out to you from my work email.

Please shoot me a message as well - alex at mystudycloud dot com

Will do!

Loving this thread, email in profile if you need help saving on supplies and chemicals. I’m assuming you have already had the fun of trying to get reasonable pricing and quotes from major distributors.

You should get in touch with me. You can find my details in my profile.

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