Helping entrepreneurs communicate the benefits of their deep tech innovations.
Carole Grasso discusses the importance for innovators to communicate the value of their ideas to secure funding and ultimately change the world.
"Think about how your idea can scale up. Be ambitious and think global!" These are the encouraging words of Carole Grasso, the Biotech Commercialisation Manager at Bridgewest Ventures. She thinks that for entrepreneurs to commercialise their technology, they need to communicate the benefits of their innovation clearly.
"To reach commercialisation it's critical to understand the specific need or problem your technology addresses and be able to adapt it to what the market and customer needs are. It's about innovators switching focus from technology development to thinking about what is needed to facilitate the commercialisation process and how to promote that."
For entrepreneurs looking to secure funding, going beyond the technical details to describe their idea's potential impact on health, the environment, and society would go a long way to getting investors to understand their vision.
Bridgewest’s global investments are shaped by their drive to create positive change. They use their investment resources to specifically target areas of opportunity to create new services and solutions that will lead to a lasting impact on the world. They purposefully invest in key vertical segments such as bioscience and deep tech, where they can be innovative and disruptive in the market and can leverage their expertise and platforms for value and strong growth.
Carole's career began in the United Kingdom in the world of advertising, before she moved into publishing, becoming part of the editorial team for the industry-leading science journal, Nature. Inspired during those years, she chose to switch her career to scientific research, working initially in the field of neuroscience, before moving to New Zealand and dedicating 15 years to cancer research, where she managed cancer research programmes spanning across drug development, immunotherapy, stem cell research, cancer genomics and cancer cell metabolism. She then used her skills within Callaghan Innovation's pharmaceutical manufacturing business unit, as a business consultant. Through her science roles, she's seen first-hand how deep tech will revolutionise medical treatment.
"What we see in the industry today is biomedical sciences converging with other deep tech disciplines like physical sciences, diagnostics, and engineering," she says. "This is leading to improved precision medicine and diagnostic tools."
As a Commercialisation Manager at Bridgewest Ventures, Carole completes due diligence for the biotech companies applying to join the incubator. She asks them the hard questions about their value propositions, commercial applications, and how their innovations will make a big impact on the world.
She also works alongside Bridgewest’s incubated biotech companies helping them navigate the commercialisation pathway. The most recent company to join Bridgewest’s biotech portfolio is BioOra, a company formed in partnership with the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research to automate the manufacture of CAR T-cells - a treatment that genetically modifies a cancer patient’s own immune cells to recognise and attack their cancer. Carole is excited to be involved in bringing this innovative technology to the world.
It's the ability to be involved in something that could really make a difference that drew Carole to Bridgewest Ventures. Her vision is making big, impactful ideas a reality and using her skills to help innovators. She loves being part of a team that invests more than just financially into ideas.
"The people at Bridgewest Ventures are here because they want to make a difference using the skills they have gained over many years. They become just as invested in innovators' ideas as the innovators. It's not just about business. It's about having a vision, making it a reality, and being part of what that reality means for changing the world for the better."
Do you have the next big idea in deep tech?
We’re searching for meaningful innovations that will impact our world socially, economically, or environmentally. This can come in many forms, from technology advances in AI development and semiconductor engineering to life science breakthroughs or biomedical discovery.
If you’ve got a novel idea, apply to the Bridgewest Ventures Deep Tech Incubator today!