Innovation match-making: Zaluvida seeks fresh ideas to invest in
Zaluvida is one of NCN’s 46 ‘cornerstone’ investors, and has attended NCN’s open meetings in the US and Geneva, where up to 25 carefully-screened startups and innovators get the chance to present to potential investors.
Now, following the examples of DSM, Herbalife and Bayer, Zaluvida has asked NCN to set up an exclusive session, tailored to its needs.
Zaluvida is looking for innovations in the areas of obesity, antibiotic resistance, immunity, heart health, oral health, energy and revitalisation, detoxification, sleep improvement, brain function, joint health, animal health, livestock emission and antimicrobials.
The best 10 candidates
NCN CEO Grant Ferrier said: “Through working specifically with our members, we’ve been asked by some of them: ‘We like what you do with these open meetings, can you do one specifically for us?’ So we said yes – and we’ve evolved that over the last three or four years, where we partner with them and outsource the function of screening and aggregating all the candidates for them, and circulating the screening process between our team and their team, to get the best eight to 10 candidates in the room.
“This is what we’re doing with Zaluvida for this meeting. There’s a logical match to do this meeting together, where their dealflow and our dealflow, their contacts and our contacts and our respective networks could be combined to create hopefully eight to 10 companies that will present in September. And then they’ll do two to three investments out of that group – that’s ideally what the aim is,” said Ferrier, adding that DSM had made three investments following its 2014 session.
Matthias Miller, chief science officer at Zaluvida, said the firm has had talks with a number of companies through NCN meetings, including one with which it is in “intense discussions” around a probiotic product in relation to weight loss and metabolic syndrome.
“We will hear from new start-up companies, inventors, university start-ups and the like, hear about their inventions and new technologies, and invite them for more intense discussions about how we can partner and collaborate in the future,” said Miller.
“We’re really looking forward to this co-operation – we think NCN has a great approach, it’s helped a lot of start-up companies get financing and develop further. They have a lot of success stories – and they were also keen to do this, and have a bit of a wider reach,” he added.
Global call for companies
According to Ferrier and Miller, Zaluvida and NCN chose Berlin as the venue for the meeting partly out of proximity to Zaluvida’s offices, but also thanks to its central location in Europe, and the city’s reputation for a lively food technology scene.
However Ferrier said the meeting is open to companies from around the world.
“We’re not limiting the presenter group to European companies, but we’ll probably see more of them compared to others, given the meeting’s in Berlin. I think we already have one US-based company and one Canada-based company interested in presenting, but I guess the majority of the presenters will be European-based,” he said.
Participation is free, and interested companies can apply to present in Berlin on 28-29 September HERE.
