John is founder, and currently serves as Executive Chairman, of CCG.ai, a Y Combinator backed start-up bringing AI to precision oncology. He holds a Masters in Pharmacology (1st Class; top UK graduate) from the University of Glasgow, a PhD in Functional Genomics from the University of Cambridge, and has recently completed an MBA focussed on health economics.
In 2018 John was honoured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 (Europe) list for his contributions to biotechnology and in 2020 became the youngest Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology (FRSB).
There are two objectives that tend to dominate the time and energy of most early-stage startup founders:
fundraising and hiring.
The latter is often impossible without the former, but a founder needs a team to support them while they’re focusing on raising capital.
It’s a difficult balance, and one with which many founders struggle, particularly if they’re inexperienced at dealing with VCs.
Kindred has written a comprehensive guide and John will share what they feel is best practice for a fundraising strategy:
The Metrics: What do I need to raise a Series A?
The Timeline: When do I need to start speaking to investors?
The Process: Curating a group of VCs.
The Process: Actively meeting with investors, pitching, performing due diligence, receiving/evaluating term sheets, negotiating, and executing the deal.
We will also talk about how to structure your pitch deck(s), preparing for due diligence, organizing a data room, and questions you should ask investors.