Show Notes 225: Capital at Scale: Who Wins the Next Phase of Deep Tech Growth
Recorded live at Cambridge Tech Week, this panel brings together a founder who is actively rewriting the economics of drug discovery, two of Europe's most respected deep tech investors, and a sovereign fund deploying capital from Seoul into the UK ecosystem. The result is one of the most substantive conversations the podcast has hosted on what it actually takes to build a globally consequential company from Cambridge.
The moderator is Sherry Coutu CBE a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, LP in five VC funds, and board member at Raspberry Pi, Pearson, Standard Life and Cancer Research UK. The panellists are Dr Tim Guilliams, Co-founder and CEO of Healx; Tom Wilson, Partner at Seedcamp; Amelia Armour, Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners; and Ute Kim, Head of the London Office at Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC).
Healx: the AI native pharma changing the economics of rare disease
Cambridge biotech Healx has dosed the first patient with a rare and deadly cancer using a drug created with artificial intelligence, specifically NF1 (neurofibromatosis type 1) businessweekly
Co-founded by Dr Tim Guilliams and Dr David Brown, co-inventor of Viagra and former Global Head of Drug Discovery at Roche, the company has raised over $150 million to date
The traditional drug discovery model costs $2 to 3 billion per drug with a 90% failure rate. Healx's AI-driven approach targets registrational trial to approval for approximately $50 million per programme, with projected peak annual sales of $3 to 5 billion from a single programme
The company operates with just 50 people today and aims to scale to 150 to 200 to achieve revenues comparable to pharma giants employing tens of thousands
There are 10,000 rare diseases worldwide; 95% have no approved treatment, affecting 400 million patients. Healx's mission is to address this at scale using multi-omic data sets and AI to define complex disease signatures rather than single-target approaches
Healx's Series A was led by Balderton Capital, Series B by Atomico, with Amadeus Capital Partners as seed investor
"We're developing an operational model that has completely different economics and is more suitable to the problem. A registration trial to approval costs around 50 million dollars. We're projecting three to five billion dollars of annual peak sales. That is a game changer." — Dr Tim Guilliams, Healx
Seedcamp: backing physical AI and the next paradigm
Tom Wilson, Partner at Seedcamp, confirmed the firm's seventh fund close at $220 million, with an additional $100 million Select fund for later-stage follow-on investment, bringing AUM to over $1 billion
Seedcamp was founded in 2007 with a €2.1 million first fund and has backed companies including Revolut, Wise, UiPath, Synthesia and Fluidstack eu-startups
The firm now has three people on the ground in the US and is focused on helping European companies go global faster than ever before
Key investment themes: AI applied to the physical world, robotics, new forms of compute including photonics, and deep tech founders with genuine mission conviction
Beyond capital, Seedcamp's value-add centres on three pillars: talent support, customer and business development through a network of 650 portfolio companies, and hands-on fundraising support to get portfolio companies to tier-one Series A investors
"We're at the end of a 20-year software cycle and the beginning of a new technological paradigm where AI increasingly intersects with science and the physical world." — Tom Wilson, Seedcamp
Amadeus Capital Partners: from Entropic to PolyAI, the Cambridge flywheel in action
The European venture market was just €5 billion when Amadeus started. In the first half of 2026 alone, £17 billion has gone into UK venture-backed companies eu-startups
Amelia Armour drew a vivid contrast: Amadeus's first ever investment, Entropic (from Professor Steve Young's engineering lab at Cambridge), was sold to Microsoft within 18 months. Professor Young's most recent spinout, PolyAI, has now raised over $200 million, employs close to 250 people and generates 80% of its revenue from the US
Portfolio highlights beyond Healx include Cambridge quantum companies Riverlane (error correction) and Nu Quantum (quantum interconnect), and companies in photonics, next-generation compute and novel materials
The strategic priority: help companies raise significant growth-stage capital domestically so that UK founders are not forced to trek to Silicon Valley, and so that returns stay in the UK
KVIC: why a Korean sovereign fund is betting on Cambridge
Korea Venture Investment Corporation (KVIC) opened its London office three years ago, covering the UK, Europe and the Middle East
The fund has made 18 fund investments across the region in that time, with Amadeus Capital Partners described as one of its best decisions
Key criteria beyond capital: a fund's ability to act as a bridge between the Korean and UK ecosystems, transparency, demonstrated value creation for founders, and a hands-on approach to helping companies scale
Subscribe on all major podcast platforms or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com. 🎧
Episode Transcript
[Speaker 1]: Technology moves fast, and now so can you. Discover Polestar, the all-electric performance brand vehicles redefining how we drive. Precision engineering, minimalist design, and software that evolves with you. Experience it at Holden Group in Norwich and Bury St Edmunds. or let us bring the test drive to your door. Proud sponsors of the Cambridge Tech Podcast. Polestar. Electric performance redefined. Discover at holdengroup.co.uk/polestar. Welcome to the Cambridge Tech Podcast. Talking all things technology from the heart of the UK's tech capital. Here are your hosts, Faye Holland and James Parton.
[Speaker 2]: Hello everyone. Very good, very good to be here. very great to be having on this panel. so we're going to talk about who wins next in deep tech and really wanted to focus on deep tech as opposed to any other type of tech and on becoming a global winner. we're going to start narrow with a bit of deep tech, which is life sciences, that has already raised more than 100 million. we're then going to explore different verticals inside deep tech and we're going to look at some early stage and later stage investors to help us with that. and then we're going to widen it a lot wider to the globe and think about, well, who are those, you know, governments and organizations that are investing in companies that invest in deep tech. So that hopefully by the end we'll have an understanding of the, you know, the the founder, the founder view and the ecosystem and the investor system of what that actually, what that actually means. So, if that's, if that's okay, then we'll probably we'll probably do that. And what we're going to do is we're going to each of the speakers are going to introduce themselves for 60 or 90 seconds. You can go a little bit longer, we've got quite a lot of time. and then we're going to go through some questions just so that we can tease out those areas. I will open up for about 10 minutes of questions. So if you think you have a burning question we will we will come to you about 10 minutes before the end. and then when we do that, just state who you are, why you're asking the question, and then we'll go to where we need to go. Right. So and again, sort of you sort of sort of said Cherry. So, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I've started up a bunch of companies. I've invested in as an angel in a lot of companies in a lot of countries. I'm an LP in five venture venture companies. currently on the board of Raspberry Pi and Pearson and Standard Life. So that covers some deep tech, some learning, which is more mainly software and platforms and pensions where we're supposed to be deploying into you know, into into this area as as well. And on the board of Cancer Research UK which is very much deep tech but it you close very close to the sort of area that you're talking about where you go from grants over a number of years into investments, some of them small, some of them large, and supporting it over time. So, delighted to be here on my favorite subject with some of my favorite people. So, why don't you tell us tell us about what you're doing and then we'll go on.
[Speaker 3]: Okay, so I'll I'll start by introducing myself. So I'm I'm I'm Tim, I'm the co-founder and CEO of of of Helix. And we're building the first AI-native rare disease pharma. So end-to-end from AI discovery to clinical development, but also commercial launch in an incredibly capital-efficient way. I started a journey not far from here, so I did my PhD at the chemistry department and then had the idea for the company and met my co-founder David Brown, who was previously global head of drug discovery at Roche, and famously is also the co-inventor of Viagra amongst other drugs. And so we were really excited about using AI to lead the next paradigm in drug discovery. And now we've raised more than 150 million to date and we're next year planning the registrational trial to approval. So that's where we are for a breakthrough drug that's effectively anti-tumor drug with no side effects. And so if you think about the so what and the impact and the breakthroughs that AI can can deliver, that's really a a pretty big one. So pleasure to be here.
[Speaker 2]: Brilliant. Thank you. and Amelia is an investor in your organization and Mute is an investor in Amelia's organization. So again we've got the full full circle and I'm not sure if you are, but you know, there's always the opportunity. So far the odd one out. so why don't you tell us a little bit about Seedcamp and your journey to it, what you're looking for in the different types outside of the life science sort of part of deep tech, how you think about deep tech as a as a sector. Yeah. And as an opportunity.
[Speaker 4]: Absolutely. great to be here. yeah, so I'm Tom, I'm a partner at at Seedcamp. You know, Seedcamp were one of the first kind of seed stage focused funds in in Europe. So we founded in in 2007. we started life with a, you know, a very, very small fund of 2.5 million euros. We're now managing, we've got over a billion dollars of assets under management. We're a generalist fund, so you know, in the team we're all generalist investors. We always say our specialism is the stage. You know, every single deal that we have done, you know, whether that's kind of a Revolut, a Symphesia, a Fluidstack, a Wize, a UiPath you know, many, many other companies which have scaled and done phenomenal... normally well, has always been at the the very first stage. but we also have, whilst we're kind of a generalist partnership, and I've been at C Cam for 12 years, we we have kind of secondary areas of of interest that that we all spend time in. Personally, I think, you know, the time around deep tech at the moment is couldn't be more exciting and there's just incredible founders building unbelievable companies with with huge ambition and actually, you know, Cambridge is is right at the heart of that. you know, our focus is is Europe-wide. You know, our office is in London. I personally live in Cambridge, so I'm very passionate about this ecosystem. but we invest throughout the continent. and the the the vision for us has has always been pretty much the same, that, you know, we believe that European founders can build global businesses. and we want to be that first check investor for those founders and and help propel them onwards on on that journey. the the other things that have, I suppose, adapted now, we we recently closed our seventh fund earlier this year, which is a 220 million dollar vehicle to invest at at the seed stage. and we also now have a 100 million dollar kind of select fund which kicks in a little bit later, which has allowed us to hire a small team in in the US. So we now have three people in the US. and that's very much about helping companies expand at the right time because again it kind of leans into that positioning of European founders are building global businesses and those businesses are going global like faster than ever, which I think is extremely exciting.
[Speaker 2]: And I think you do some stuff with the other university as well. Is that is that correct? Yeah.
[Speaker 4]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I also sit on the, yeah, advisory board for the Oxford Seed Fund. so personally I've spent quite a lot of time in kind of rest of UK as well, so across that that triangle, but you know, I'm passionate about Cambridge.
[Speaker 2]: some some of the questions will be the different ecosystems and what we can learn from them so that we can be paranoid about other things that others have that we don't and also very proud of what we have that others don't. so, Amelia, let's let's hear from you again, widen out the different trends again your background and the different bits of deep tech that you're excited about. In addition, of course, to to what what Tim is doing.
[Speaker 5]: Yeah, thank you. Good morning, it's very nice to see you and be here today. My name's Amelia, I'm a partner at Amadeus Capital Partners. And we're a venture capital firm that started nearly 30 years ago now and we've always had offices in Cambridge and London and invest UK-wide into deep tech companies. And that's always been the core of what we've done and deep tech was quite unusual back then and now it's pretty much mainstream. And if you look at the numbers that are involved in investment now compared to when Amadeus started, it's quite striking the changes. You know, the European market was just five billion when Amadeus started in terms of money coming into venture capital back companies. Now, this first half year alone, we've had 17 billion just into UK companies. So the growth in the market and the funding of companies has been absolutely phenomenal. But what's really interesting is what is happening with the companies that we've been investing in, and about a third of the investments that we've made over time have been into Cambridge spin-outs. And the very first investment that Amadeus made was into a company called Entropic, which came from Professor Steve Young's lab in the engineering department here. And that company, which powers speech recognition, was sold to Microsoft very quickly, only after about 18 months. If we fast forward to now, Steve Young's latest or most recent spinout was a company called PolyAI, which is building voice AI agents. That company is now massively scaling. It's raised over 200 million in capital. 80% of its revenue is coming from the US. It's employing close to 250 people. And so we see this real difference in what were tech assets that were sold relatively quickly at the start of the sort of Amadeus journey to now the scaling up of businesses that start with just, you know, three people from the engineering department here and then grow into global businesses. and that, you know, for me has just been the most exciting thing of being part of this journey and being at Amadeus for the last 17 years.
[Speaker 6]: Hi I'm Ute Kim. I'm actually I'm leading Korea venture investment corporations office in London. I'm currently covering the UK, Europe and Middle East business. For the last so far we made 18 fund investments across the region and for the last three years I deployed to 12 funds and Amadeus is actually one of the best decisions we made. and and yeah, we are actively deploying to the UK. I actually set up this office three years ago by myself to expand our reach to broader region. We had huge allocation to the US funds, Asian funds but we thought connecting Europe, UK and Korean ecosystem is critical for for Korean ecosystems development and expansion. So we yeah, we we've been actually investing in European funds from 2019, but but most of our portfolio and investment fund investment was made for the last three years. And the reason we invested in UK funds, especially Amadeus in in Cambridge was we wanted to learn the lessons how UK investors are investing in the companies and helping those startups founders and work with universities and how university enterprises are are working with founders. And Cambridge has really comprehensive ecosystem research campuses. So I'm actually learning valuable lessons from the funds we invested in. And I think we still have a lot to to work with more managers in in the UK.
[Speaker 2]: Great Thank you. so the the first question that I want to explore is how are, and we're going to start small and go go broader. how are you using AI?
So one of the things about scale-ups that do get to global, to be globally consequential is they are using AI differently than the large companies that they're running circles around. So, really want to understand how is it helping you to continue to to scale? What are you doing with it? and maybe what lessons we, you know, others might have, but how is it helping you solve problems that give you confidence about the the future? and that resonate with investors because then we're going to talk about what investors are looking for in those that deploy AI.
[Speaker 3]: Yeah, that's a really important topic. So, at Helix, we we use AI to do broadly two things. One is to understand complex rare disease biology and predict drugs that work on that biology in a much more complicated way and much more depth. And then the other is to really run operational model that's incredibly cost-effective and effectively not seen before. And so the part that's incredibly exciting right now, is the intersection of AI, deep tech, and biology. And and so to use that to find in our case, breakthrough drugs like an anti-tumor drug with no side effects, that is a a breakthrough drug.
[Speaker 2]: And so talk about from nuts and bolts, how where are you getting the data sets from? How are you, you know, how are you using AI in in that sense? Because I'm really curious about how that differs from some of the things that Tom might be investing in or Amelia might be investing in.
[Speaker 3]: Yeah, so for us, we for example, we invest a lot in what's called multi-omic data sets, so your genome, proteome, metabolome, et cetera. And then we use that to define complex disease signatures and then predict patterns of drugs that would reverse basically a disease signature to a healthy one, but in a much more complex way. And just to put this into perspective that's a paradigm shift compared to the current drug discovery paradigm that's called target-based. And that started in 2001. So Cambridge was actually had a very important role for the first human genome project, which was resulted from the Sanger technology, so Frederick Sanger who got the Nobel Prize, and the naivety that came with that was that basically now we have sequenced all the genes. Every gene is going to be linked to one disease. And we're going to take this one gene, we're going to target it or the protein it's it's sequence for, and that's going to be your magic bullet. And now fast forward more than 20 years, we're in an industry where it costs two to three billion dollars to get a drug to approval and more than 90% failure rate. And that is become because the current drug discovery paradigm was too simple. So a single target. Now you can use AI to not dumb down your biology at the start, really multi-modal complexity. We have 22,000 genes, 60,000 proteins. And that's super exciting. And so this is the thing that we were pioneering at the chemistry department, it was the foundation for the company. And yeah, now we have real drugs in the clinic, breakthrough drugs. Next year we're going to start registrational trial to approval. And if you look at the economics, We the next trial, so registration to approve will cost about 50 million dollars. We're projecting three to five billion dollars of annual peak sales. This is just one program. So for investors and return on investment, that is a game changer. Today, we're 50 people. We do AI drug discovery, clinical development, and now we're going to plan to do also commercial launch, so your go-to-market, really important in any company, and that clarity of how you're going to a) have an impact on society, b) shareholder returns. We're going to focus on the US, and we think we can basically do this with 150 to 200 people. If you compare to a pharma company like Merck, they acquired our competitor for four billion last year. Merck are sixty-three thousand people. They generate twenty-four billion per year but spend seventeen billion per year. We're talking about an AI native, threadless pharma with hundred to hundred fifty to two hundred people that can generate similar type of revenue. And that is a complete game changer. And and an incredibly exciting opportunity. And just to add one more thing, particularly in areas where there's huge unmet need. So in rare diseases, you have 10,000 rare diseases. 95% don't have an approved treatment. That is 400 million patients worldwide. So that's larger than the population size of the United States and half of those are children. And so if you apply the traditional drug discovery model, that takes decades, billions, and a 90% failure rate, you cannot solve that problem. In fact, it would cost around 13 trillion dollars to solve that problem. And so we're developing an operational model that has completely different economics behind it and more suitable to that. So, very exciting.
[Speaker 2]: and a a platform for addressing a a whole lot of different problems that very few people have on a global basis, which is again where you get the the the ability to scale that geographically is very, very exciting. what makes you more excited? The fact that you can solve, you know, rare diseases at scale on a global basis, or the fact that it's not impossible any longer to be able to to fund that and that, you know, you've got a a good solution. What what makes you get out of bed with a bigger bound in your step than than the other or, I mean, I don't say equally you're not allowed to say equally, it has to be one or the other.
[Speaker 3]: one or the other I mean, I I I I think I'm I'm a mission-driven founder. We started a company inspired by a rare disease parent who lives in Cambridge actually. Has two kids with an ultra rare disease. he was told originally there's it's too rare, there's no drugs, enjoy the next couple of years with your kids and no one's going to develop a drug because you can't make any money. We met this guy at a place called La Maison du Tech down the road. And and he was explaining what he was doing. and he set up a foundation to raise some money and then identified that basically the component of a weed killer acted on the same enzyme in plants that his kids had this very rare mutation. And now you fast forward, this guy managed to develop and get this drug to approval in the EMA with a 10 million dollar budget. And so when we heard what he was doing, we were like, okay. And then how many rare diseases are there? This is really a problem where you can basically use AI to do this at scale in a different way and and beat the odds. And so that's that's what I'm the most excited about. But of course, with the patient impact also comes a huge return on investment, right? If you're talking 50 million to get a drug to approval and to unlock three to five billion of annual revenue. Okay, you can have a conversation about deep tech, go to market, return on investment, etcetera.
[Speaker 2]: right, so just switching over to some of the other variations of deep tech that there are, and what you're seeing in your portfolio, the founders do to unlock the economics that Tim was beautifully describing, which is now possible to unlock and really wasn't possible before. I mean, these problems have existed for a long time, but the ability to unlock them at a cost-effective basis has been, you know, hasn't been.
So, what are you seeing in other deep deep dives outside of rare diseases that make you excited? and how is AI being deployed by them in a way that large corporates and the incumbents can't answer to. Which makes it even more intriguing from an investor's point of view because you've got that defensibility. Sorry.
[Speaker 4]: Yep. firstly, I think it's fantastic the business you're you're building, Tim. Feeling like I wish we were invested, hearing you speak about it like that. Because I think even before answering the specific sectors and how we're thinking about more deeper tech investing, like one of the things that we look for across the board, and I think actually in deep tech, it's becoming increasingly important, is this idea of like a mission and a connection to the problem. because as founders, and you know, like I am just an investor and have been in the industry for a while now, but I'm in awe of the founders who we get the opportunity to back. And you know, know the role that we play is a very small part of the journey. But the founders that we back who have seen to be excellent are the people who can, you know, obviously present the company in a very, very compelling way for for two main reasons, right? One is the accessing capital, which which we can talk about because these companies require significant capital in certain spaces, particularly in some of the deeper tech areas. And then also attracting talent. And I think that those are the two pillars that lead to fantastic growth stories of companies across the board. And I think that applies specifically within deep tech. Now, on the sectors that that we're spending some time on so one of the the kind of deeper dives or, you know, even as a generalist fund, I think that is particularly exciting at the moment is kind of seeing AI applied to more the physical world, I would say. so that does include, you know, the the sciences broadly, whether it's life sciences, whether it's material sciences, but also applied to areas like robotics and, you know, interacting with physical spaces. I think AI obviously is phenomenal at the moment at dealing with software, whether it's coding, whether it's large language models, you know, the the the leaps in that space are just like incredible. and obviously there's hyperscale going into that and and there's still, I think, a long way to go there. But when as an early stage investor, we have to start thinking about, okay, where is, you know, not quite at that point yet, not maturity. And we'll we'll still make investments which utilize some of that technology, but the space that we're seeing a huge amount of really exciting talent and and some of that's in the UK or some of that's in other pockets across Europe, whether that's ETH in Switzerland around robotics or other areas across Germany and there's there's some really interesting academic institutions which are fostering incredible entrepreneurs. but I think those kind of spaces are really interesting. I think new forms of compute as well. You know, we've been spending a bit of time looking at a number of companies in that space, whether that's, you know, innovating at the photonics level or or other spaces which I think the UK has some some, and Cambridge in particular has some world-leading experts around. But broadly speaking, the theme that I'm really excited about when it comes to deep tech is the fact that we're seeing more founders who are like excited to go build companies and have extremely high like ambition. And I think that's the one of the key things. If I look at the title of here, who wins the next phase of deep tech growth, I do think that because obviously we invest we invest in Europe but we invest on a global scale, so we see companies and most of our companies go and scale in the US or attract capital from there. And I think the one thing that the winners are doing exceptionally well is they're able to kind of explain that narrative clearly and in the most compelling way because the capital is there for those businesses and people are willing to, you know, to invest because the scale of the opportunities is is so significant.
[Speaker 2]: Okay, great, thanks.
Amelia, I'd love you to talk about some of the things in your portfolio. Again, Omadeus is the deep tech, you know, probably the the initial deep tech firm. and you've got a real specialty in that. And I know that you're an investor in in Helix as well, which is brilliant. but outside of outside of the the rare diseases, what are you what's in your portfolio? What are you excited about? How do they use AI? And I also want you to touch on what you're doing to support them winning on a global on a global stage. so getting, you know, into the hundred, you know, and then the billion and then the other, the the the other sort of rounds and then revenue on those big, you know addressable markets.
[Speaker 7]: Okay, well maybe just to touch on what we're looking at at the moment, I think one of the areas that's super exciting is the whole AI infrastructure layer. If you look at how much the hyperscalers have committed to spending on AI infrastructure this this year alone, it's six hundred billion. And the impact of that is pulling through tech at an incredible rate. You know, Nvidia are the leader there, but the other hyperscalers are following at speed. And so technologies that are super interesting include the photonic space because people are moving away from the use of copper for moving data around to moving it into light because you can do it much faster and you can do it with much lower energy costs. You have next generation compute, so we see people developing exciting new inference chips and a lot of that is happening in the UK and people are raising very significant rounds of funding. If you look at the top ten largest rounds funding rounds that have happened in the UK this year, they're all related to AI or AI infrastructure. so it's a huge area of investment and the pace that things are moving at there is is incredibly fast. In the UK also on the next generation compute is is the quantum technologies. The UK is particularly strong here. We've had a 10-year program which has supported the development of quantum technologies within the UK. And Cambridge has a number of world-leading companies. We've got River Lane which is focused on error correction, New Quantum which is doing quantum interconnect. And the government has has a really had a really strong program and influence here. their latest program which has committed another billion to quantum has attracted overseas companies coming into the UK which is great. So I've been in conversation with a German quantum company that wants to set up an office in Cambridge to get access to UK funding. And that's really positive for the whole ecosystem and bringing in in talent. And that sort of like feeds into, you know, how do we come help these companies scale? You know, it's super You know, it's super important that when we back these companies that they have a global outlook. You cannot build a venture-backed company at the scale that we need in the UK alone. And so moving into other markets such as Korea, into the Middle East, into Asia, into America is extremely important. And so that's through the means of capital coming into these companies, so getting really significant growth stage funding coming in, either from overseas, which also brings strong connectivity and also support to help scale in new markets, but also from domestic capital and the last panel touched on that a bit of, you know, trying to release this pension money to support our businesses here. So one that it's easier for companies to raise money in the UK because they don't have to trek over to Silicon Valley and go up and down Sand Hill Road looking for capital, but they can get it much more easily in the UK. But also so that the UK people benefit when these companies get to exit either through M&A or through or through floating. And so it's really bringing in these larger rounds of capital so that companies can really build from, you know, fifty to two hundred and fifty to a thousand plus employees. And that's and that's what we really want to see happening in the UK. And it's and it's bringing in the talent and the investor base to support them to do that.
[Speaker 2]: Okay, thank you. Tom, I want to go back to you just for a second because I think one of the things that C Camp's particularly sort of famous for is your you roll up your sleeves and you're very hands-on at the early stage and and then throughout. But what are some of the things you do in addition to capital to help the founders on their journey, which may be tech, talent attraction, maybe talent retention, maybe getting government procurement contracts, it may be getting corporates. What are what are the what are the some of the things that you do? and then Wute, I'm going to come over to you and say, how do you choose between organizations like these two on the support, because the support that they give outside the capital that you give them to deploy are really what makes the difference on the the journey to a globally consequential company. So, just talk talk touch on that a little bit.
[Speaker 4]: very very happy to so I think it's two or three kind of main pillars. I'd say one is talent. You know, we have in-house talent support for the companies that we invest in. Like the way we think about that is a kind of combination of like tooling that we've built which kind of equips founders to be able to like access best-in-class resources or kind of understand how we've seen companies hire very well and set up the kind of machine rather than necessarily doing the specific hiring for them. And then we do have the ability at certain points to also like step in and be very, very hands-on with accessing certain talent, whether that's, you know, running certain processes or being involved in in in helping with that kind of like getting fantastic talent over the line. So, I suppose talent is a very core kind of like pillar for us. And then one of the other ones that we have started to prioritize a little bit more is around kind of just like broadly like outreach for customers. so whether you think about business development or whether you think about that as kind of accessing a network, we've historically done that kind of through all of us, through in the investment team. you know, we're really fortunate to like now invested in over 650 companies, so we've got a vast network, whether that's existing Seedcamp companies, whether that's people who are one degree of separation away which can form almost like an economy that companies can sell into or even not just from a kind of customer relationship, but also from a kind of founder to founder peer like feedback. So if there's a founder who's building at the seed stage in a certain space, but they want to kind of like get the input from a founder who is a couple of stages further along. you know, we really try to kind of like facilitate that connection because I think that's something that, you know, founding a business is is extremely hard. Like it's probably the hardest possible thing that you could do just about. and so being able to like bounce ideas off people other than just the investors, but peer to peer, I think is really, really powerful. And then probably like the the final thing is, yes, we obviously invest, we have our fund and we'll continue to invest throughout the life cycle of a of a company. But all the all of the companies we back will be going on a fundraising journey. So if they're taking seed money from us, they're going to be taking series A and series B and that's one where we would be very hands-on with like helping in terms of making sure they're connected to the right type of investor. you know, I always say that kind of our like my neck is on the line for the companies that we invest at seed to get them a kind of tier one series A. Like that's what the the immediate focus is. And then of course there is investors beyond that and we'll be very hands-on. but it's making sure that we can help with, you know, setting that process up, materials, introductions, everything that goes to it because it's probably the one thing that investors actually know more about than the founders because we have we do that across the portfolio quite significantly, whereas the founders we back are the absolute experts in what they're building in the company.
[Speaker 2]: Okay, great, thank you.
[Speaker 3]: Sorry, I just want to add a quick comment. The importance of that is is super important. So we, I just wanted to emphasize that for other founders in the room, like Amadeus Capital did our seed round, and then Balderton Capital, so Srinivasan was earlier on the panel, did our Series A, Atomico Series B. And so the importance of having like exceptional investors early on to help you through the journey is is like, I can't emphasize how important that is. And I think Amadeus I expect you will do more than a thousand x on your investment in Helix. So you know, win-win for everyone.
[Speaker 2]: thank you. and and Wajay, as you think about how to deploy your, I think you said your fund is 23 billion a year and you deploy it across a number of different funds in a number of different geographies. What are the things that, you know, stand out for you that give you confidence that this fund is, you know, more likely than that fund or as likely to make it happen, make the globally consequential journey happen? What are you, what are you looking for and what allows you to persuade your colleagues to to deploy capital across across the globe?
[Speaker 6]: Yeah as a sovereign funds from Korea and who's who doesn't have a lot of experience in in the UK. we are we're looking for a manager who can work as a bridge between Korea and and the UK. And that means a lot actually that include a lot of a lot of characteristics. First thing is they have to provide the the value creation support, not just capital to the company, but they have to provide the value creation. Somehow we've been heavily deployed to deep tech funds for the last couple of years. But the thing is, we know deep tech, the technology is important, but but I think the direction is important and and speed is is important. setting up a a developing a technology is important, of course, but building a scalable company is a whole different story. And I think this is where the good venture capitals can can create provide the value to to build a scalable company. And and the other thing is definitely as a, as a sovereign funds transparency is important. So when we evaluate the fund, for the last few years, I evaluated more than 100 funds proposals. And the transparency is very important and we do a reference call. And actually, I got a similar comment about Amadeus. so the comment I heard, but Amadeus was the team team is actually moving the founder work and yeah, so it was very absolutely great comment we have been looking for. And definitely, yeah, definitely we are looking for more UK fund managers, another Amadeus, and hopefully we are trying we are yeah making more re-ups to the managers we we like to work with. that's our strategy for the next couple of years.
[Speaker 2]: Thank you. so I'm going to just ask you a final short question and then we're going to go to the audience for a while. So if you're in the audience and you have a a question that's burning get ready to put your hand up. if not, I'll keep on firing questions. but for you as a as a recipient you've got a you're in Cambridge which is brilliant. You've got co-founders who have done some pretty extraordinary things that are a a good source, a good source of support for whatever problems you happen to be running into that you want to solve. and you've got a series of investors that have been operators themselves and also can connect you with their with their networks and that they're well connected and again with things like Wute's fund. What does that feel like? I mean, has it just been super, super simple? or, you know, are there still some areas where, you know, but obviously it's must have been simpler here than it might have been in other places outside of Cambridge.
But was that, was it just obvious that you would go on this journey? I mean, did you think that this is what you would be doing when you started your biochem PhD? I mean, it seems like a very natural progression to me and the most natural in the world, but was it to you?
[Speaker 3]: that's that's great great question. So it wasn't for me a natural progression. I was expected I would become an academic and so I came to Cambridge with with that idea and then realized how badly dyslexic I was and so writing papers without ChatGPT, for anyone doing it today it's much easier was a bit of a hurdle. And then I kept on actually having ideas for stuff and so I started a number of student societies in Cambridge. One of them was the Cambridge University Science and Policy Exchange to bring policymakers and so I had a number of ideas. and then I think yeah, having the privilege of being here and then finding a mission I'm passionate about and then walking through someone who used to be global head of drug discovery at Roche down the road and then an investor down the road and then co-founder, like basically it's a real privilege. And I think the journey is challenging. and and but I think you learn how to manage those changes. And so one of the most important things is really figuring out your your personal resilience manual. And and you you the only way to learn is by crashing a couple of times like big time. And and and I think once you get that but also the learnings along the way, right, when when things don't go to plan, having experienced co-founders, investors who can support you on that journey is just wonderful. And the days where I struggle a little bit, I think I kind of I get this this I also meditated a bit, I won't go into that, but this this sense of like, whoa, I I get to do this, right? like, I I said I had an idea as a student, I raised some capital, we were doing it, we were finding breakthrough drugs, we're like, you know, it's it's a real privilege. And so it feels like often it's kind of wartime and there's lots of problem solving, but I think the bigger picture of like, wow, I get to do this. This is like incredible. and that's yeah.
[Speaker 2]: I remember when I moved to Cambridge a long, long time ago that it did seem a, you know, a good place to solve hard, hard, hard problems. And again, as the journey went on, you sort of find yourself sort of, you know, customers everywhere and then you sort of do this flotation and then you think, wow, you know, you can actually do that. And you can find peers and colleagues in your value chain that you've put together that just want you to win. which is brilliant. So it's now going red and counting down. So, I'm sorry. So we're going to have to very quick answers if there are questions. So we've got a question there on the on the far right. so, who are you and why are you asking your question? and try to make a a pithy question and then we can get some pithy quick answers as well. Thanks.
[Speaker 8]: Hi, I'm Deanna Clark. I'm an angel investor. my question is for Tim Helix. Thank you for telling us about your journey. there are many companies using AI towards medication. what is it that stood out about yours? Was it your focus on rare diseases? question number one. Number two, how different is your technology to others in your in your area? and then finally, how close are you to actually
[Speaker 2]: We have to have a very short, pithy question.
[Speaker 3]: And thank you. the the sound is not very good here but I think I understood the the the the question. so I think the the difference is we took very hard problems to start with. So we didn't just do what everyone else is doing, you take a target that's your alpha fold problem, find a new drug on the same target like everyone else. We took things where there's no validated biology, find new biology, predict a drug. And then if you're on the investor side evaluating companies etcetera, today you will hear a lot of stories about we're going to use a foundational model for this, we're going to do that and we're going to predict, you know sell sell a vision of things that may happen in the future. We have real drugs in the clinic, right? Next year we're going to do a real registrational trial to get a drug to approve. And so the whole storytelling, hope, maybe AI is going to help us to find a breakthrough drug. Basically, we're doing it. And and and and I'm sure other people can succeed as well. But in the rare disease space, I think we are the most advanced company and we're going to do end to end. So for for us the opportunity is not to like sell to Merck for four billion like one of our competitors, is to build the next Merck. Like in a completely different operational basis.
[Speaker 2]: May you build many mercs in your life.
[Speaker 3]: Hey, Mark.
[Speaker 2]: any marks in your lifetime. brilliant. Well, I think that brings us to to the end. So thank you, thank you for your question and thank you for your contributions. I love the, you know, the simplification of hard things, which you've, I think you've done really well. And I think that Tom and Amelia, you've elucidated the other areas that are really exciting and also how you add value to to these guys on their hard journey that I really don't think is insane. In fact, I think the founder journey is the most compelling journey that there is of any career, full stop. And I don't think you have to be crazy.
and and then we'll see how you allocate capital on a global basis and what you're looking for as we as we work with partners and ecosystems to unearth many marks of the future.
so that we don't sell to them. We don't want to sell out early. Definitely not the thing to do. But anyway, thank you all. Faye, thank you for putting this together. I think it's really important. And I think you're going to hear some really exciting pitches of perhaps additional sort of scale-ups that'll come out of Cambridge. But really appreciate your attention and your contributions. Thank you.
[Speaker 9]: Today's show was produced by Joe Donaghy of Cambridge TV and supported by our media partner Business Weekly. The Cambridge Tech Podcast is available on all major podcast platforms and on cambridge tech podcast dot com. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please give it a five star review. It'll really help others discover the show.
To listen and subscribe, search for ‘Cambridge Tech Podcast’ on your favourite podcasting platform or visit cambridgetechpodcast.com.
