Abstract

A discussion of the realities of getting a new venture funded by seedcorn, started and spun out.

Darrin Disley, CEO of Horizon Discovery will talk about his experiences of doing a start-up in practice and Anne Dobrée, Head of Seed Funds at Cambridge Enterprise will talk about seed funding, including their portfolio of sources

Speakers’ Profiles:

Darrin is CEO and President of Horizon Discovery. He is a parallel business entrepreneur and has been involved in the start-up and growth of 10 business ventures. He has raised in excess of $80M of business financing and has closed business development deals totalling $200M. At Horizon, he is responsible for corporate development, business strategy and investor relations; and since October 2007 has overseen revenue growth of 100% (CAGR; 2007-12) and a 364% increase in exports (2008-11). Darrin holds a PhD in Biotechnology from the University of Cambridge; has been the author of 6 papers, 7 patents and 36 conference abstracts and; has been an advisor on biotech commercialisation strategies around the world. Darrin supports numerous academic, business plan competition and mentoring programs in the UK with financial and practical help. He is an Entrepreneur in Residence at the Judge Business School and Enterprise Fellow at the Institute of Biotechnology both at the University of Cambridge.

Anne is head of seed funds at Cambridge Enterprise. She joined the Seed Funds team as Access to Capital and Investment Manager at the start of 2008, focussing on investments in the biotech area. Anne had previously worked with Cambridge Enterprise in the technology transfer team, in a variety of roles including Interim Director and Head of Technology Transfer. Anne was a founding member of Praxis, the UK Technology Transfer Training Programme. Away from Cambridge Enterprise, Anne has worked in technology transfer at Imperial College Innovations Limited; in pharmaceutical development at Evans Medical; and in pharmaceutical product training at Information Transfer. Anne holds a BSc in Medical Microbiology and a PhD in Immunology.