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You have an idea for a start-up that will completely revolutionize the fertility space and need seed money, how do you attract investors to believe in your idea?
Dr. Santiago Munné, Co-Founder of Homu Health Ventures, offers up the investor side of that question as he gives an honest look at the venture capital landscape in the fertility space.
Tune in as Dr. Munné:
Introduces us to a different kind of venture capital in the fertility space
Tells us the start-up must-haves for his company to invest
Discusses AI: Tool or complete business solution?
Reveals Homu Health’s target ROI multiple (And their ROI timeline)
Speaks on the current climate of the VC Market (Hint: Winter is coming)
Dr. Santiago Munné
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Transcript
[00:00:00] Dr. Santiago Munné: The funds have dried out completely. The ones that were lucky that, had investment, before. so now they had to preserve it, significantly. for instance, a company that were, was developing a couple of products will have to focus only on a single one, things like that.
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Announcer: Today's advertisers helped make the production and delivery of this episode possible for free to you. But the themes expressed by the guests do not necessarily reflect the views of Inside Reproductive Health, nor of the advertisers. The advertisers do not have editorial control over the content of this episode, and the guest's appearance is not an endorsement of the advertisers.
[00:01:40] Griffin Jones: You have an idea for a startup that will completely revolutionize the fertility space. You need money. You might want some guidance. You might want some collaboration. How much of your company would you give up in order to get those? My guest talks about the average percentage of equity that his firm takes in startups, and he introduces us to a different kind of venture capital in the fertility space.
Dr. Santiago Munné, HOMU Ventures, is an incubator. They currently have 15 companies in their portfolio, all in the reproductive health space. They're developing companies at different parts of the fertility treatment chain. Dr. Munay talks about the ecosystem that they all fit into. You might know Santi as the founder of Recombine, the founder of Reprogenetics.
I believe he sold both of those companies to Cooper, where he was the chief scientific officer for a couple years. He's co founded a number of other companies and operated some of them. He was on the other side as the investee. Now he's the investor. We go through what is their target return on investment multiple?
What's their target return on investment timeframe? What do these companies have to have and have to prove before Dr. Munay's team will invest in them? Why don't they invest in AI companies? Is Santi right about AI solutions being more tools than complete business solutions? Or is he missing the bigger picture?
We go into more detail about the automation that needs to happen in the IVF lab, beyond storage and witnessing to automating ICSI, automating egg freezing and others. I asked Dr. Monet, what's the appropriate level of proof of concept for companies in these stages? They haven't sold anything yet. How do you know anybody wants it?
And Santi shares what it's like out there in the current venture capital market. I don't know Dr. Monet too well beyond this interview, but one thing that I think you're going to like about him is that he's not a pitch man. He gives very straightforward answers. And as far as I can tell, it doesn't sugarcoat anything.
Enjoy the episode. Dr. Munné, Santi, welcome to the Inside Reproductive Health podcast.
[00:03:24] Dr. Santiago Munné: Thank you.
[00:03:26] Griffin Jones: Nice to be here. I've gotten to know you a bit from your involvement in different companies. I've gotten to know a little bit of some of the companies that you've invested in, and I'm not here to necessarily talk Too much about those individual companies, but I am interested in how you invest in them and how you've chosen to invest in them.
I want to get to all of that, but your background is first a scientific training. You, your PhD is in genetics. I believe that you also have a degree in biology. And so when did business come into play? When did investing come into play? Did that come in very early? on in your career as you were studying genetics and biology or did it come much later?
[00:04:14] Dr. Santiago Munné: No, actually, so I, I, developed the first genetic test to, screen embryos for chromosome normalities and accidentally that became, it became a company and then it was, one after another. we created our companies or I got involved in, investing and so on. And at the end it was, I had a little bit too many at the same time.
So we decided to create an incubator and with some help, then, now we have this incubator among health ventures, in which we have about 15 companies, all in reproductive medicine.
[00:04:55] Griffin Jones: So you said you had a couple too many. How many companies did you have before you formed the incubator?
[00:05:02] Dr. Santiago Munné: one thing is to, to be the CEO.
I've been only the CEO of, ReproGenetics. and then I, helped found, several other companies. and yes, between The day to day of these companies, so it was getting too complicated. So we decided to, that we needed more help basically after, I sold a couple of them to, to Cooper, surgical, I funded, two, three more companies and as we have thought of ideas of potential companies, but it became, too complicated to manage all those.
So with a friend, we decided to get some more help and create an incubator where we put all these ideas and emerging companies, mostly on proceed stage. and this is come how these incubators started up.
[00:06:06] Griffin Jones: In the beginning, were you involved as an operator in all of those businesses you said you sold two or three companies and were you either CEO or chief scientific officer or chief operating officer of all of them?
Were you deeply involved in the operations of all of those companies?
[00:06:24] Dr. Santiago Munné: yeah, I've been reprogenetics where I was the CEO, then I've been CEO and chief scientific officer of a couple more, including overture. The last one.
[00:06:35] Griffin Jones: So there's a difference between being an operator and the investor. And I guess we'll get to that.
But when you had those, companies with reprogenetic or, any of the other companies, did you have a venture capital funding for any of those companies?
[00:06:58] Dr. Santiago Munné: yes. Yes. represent no repression ethics. But we had, that was all organic. But all the others have been funded by private equity. Sorry, right by VC.
[00:07:13] Griffin Jones: so you did have experience working with venture capitalists with private equity, right? with investors before you became one yourself, was there a process that you went through, while you were still at, the operator level of those two or three companies that was like a transition to an investor.
So you were like a part investor in your own companies. Did you become an accredited investor during that time? Talk to us about what that process was like.
[00:07:44] Dr. Santiago Munné: No, that happened afterwards. so first We got funding in, several of these companies, Recombine, Phosphorus, Overture, and after that, we funded these incubator and started investing in it.
[00:08:03] Griffin Jones: What year did the incubator start?
[00:08:05] Dr. Santiago Munné: That was only, three years ago.
[00:08:08] Griffin Jones: So you've had success in building the businesses. You get some capital to do it. You have some. the experience with venture capital. but tell us more about how the incubator came to be.
[00:08:26] Dr. Santiago Munné: Basically, we think that when you are starting a company, the investors, or the market will push you to develop a single product.
and you're lucky you will develop this product and you may be successful. And if you're successful, you may create other products after that. But usually you have to focus on a single product and In order to change reproductive medicine as we know it to make it more affordable and more efficient, you really need to change a lot of things.
You need a whole ecosystem of companies that are synergetic between themselves. And this is really very difficult to do with from a single company. I don't think any of the ones that are there. or that we have invested, they can do it by themselves. The idea or the leitmotif of, the incubator is, to create this ecosystem of companies that are synergetic and together, they may be able to, change and improve the, field of reproductive medicine.
[00:09:31] Griffin Jones: How do they work together in that ecosystem?
[00:09:35] Dr. Santiago Munné: so for instance, we have, a company, that's called Sama that it's, developing, basically monitors patients remotely. But then we have another one, Genome embryonics that develops a genetic test to screen embryos, for the no mutations doing whole genome sequencing.
So we put them together, and gene embryonics will develop a test that. will be a companion, test for hormone stimulation. So that will help some, better monitor patients, for instance. Or, for instance, we'll have another company butterfly, that is developing a system to retrieve X, from by flushing, the, uterine cavity.
the need of surgery or an anesthesia. And on the other side, there is Overture that has developed egg freezing, in a very small, device. So if you combine them, you could put them, both systems in an OB GYN office. you wouldn't need an OR. and the idea is that, then Fertility preservation would be much easier, would be done in an RBGY office instead of having to go to an IBS center. we're looking for companies that, that, combine, can change the, the field.
[00:11:02] Griffin Jones: So are you keeping all of this in a sort of hub? is there a hub for this ecosystem? Or you're connecting these companies together and are they just connecting with each other so they can learn from each other a little bit?
Or are you viewing this like a map? And here's where each of these different players. plug in and you have some sort of centralized way that they are all working in towards the same manifestation of the ecosystem. Yeah,
[00:11:30] Dr. Santiago Munné: no, it's, more like a map. Yeah. And we're, trying to find, actively find sometimes, companies that feed some gaps in these ecosystem, but yeah, it's not a physical, place.
[00:11:47] Griffin Jones: Did you start with that map three or four years ago when you started the incubator? How differently does that, how differently or how diff, similarly does that map look today than it did four years ago?
[00:12:04] Dr. Santiago Munné: it looks much better. I think at the beginning, we thought it would be easier. and it's not gonna be so easy.
It takes much more funding. And yeah, there are a lot of things that you don't predict. but yeah, I think it looks better. but also more complicated. so I think we're, getting closer, but we were not expecting, to be so difficult.
[00:12:32] Griffin Jones: What specifically did you think would be easier?
[00:12:38] Dr. Santiago Munné: we thought, that, things will happen much sooner and then you get the dynamics of, small companies, investors, funding and so on that derails, a bunch of these products and companies.
[00:12:52] Griffin Jones: When you say, things would happen much sooner, do you mean, fundraising would happen much, certain fundraising rounds? Yeah,
[00:13:00] Dr. Santiago Munné: absolutely. We had very difficult two years for funding. So all the companies basically had to, to be much more conservative, with the money that they raised previously. because it's, very difficult right now still to, to raise funds.
[00:13:19] Griffin Jones: How do you as an incubator, work with other venture firms?
[00:13:26] Dr. Santiago Munné: Basically, we, try to, co invest sometimes, but mostly we, are trying to, yeah, to sell the companies or to, basically. Advertise that these companies are doing this work and that they need funding, more than coinvest.
Usually we, we find the companies that we like and then we try to, find people that would coinvest, but, not, at the contrary.
[00:14:01] Griffin Jones: So I'm probably a little bit ignorant as to how incubators work. I think I assumed that incubators will do some angel or some maybe seed round investing in all of the companies in the incubator.
Is that the case? have you invested at the angel level at each of them? Have you invested beyond the angel round for any of them in the series a or
[00:14:23] Dr. Santiago Munné: yes. So we did the angel proceed and seed. and some are at the level of, a, but yeah, we, try to, to invest at the very early stage and, get about 10 percent of the company.
[00:14:43] Griffin Jones: And so what in your estimate, why has it been difficult in, your view to this fundraising environment in the last two years, because the last year, while we've seen interest rates skyrocket relative to what they had been, the, the capital that was just floating around for two years is started to, To not flow like that.
But, the prior to that there was a lot of money going around. And so in your view, what has been the challenge in fundraising for these companies?
[00:15:20] Dr. Santiago Munné: Yes, no, that, the funds have dried out completely. And the ones that were lucky that, had investment, before, so now they had to preserve it, significantly.
for instance, a company that were, was developing a couple of products will have to focus only on a single one, things like that.
[00:15:46] Griffin Jones: That was going to be my question in terms of what does this do to their commercialization? Does it, does it delay it or does it make it happen sooner because they have to start selling?
[00:15:59] Dr. Santiago Munné: in a way it makes you, to be more, agile that, so far all, most of them have survived that process and are still, at it. but yes, it has delayed. going to market, and make things more difficult.
[00:16:19] Griffin Jones: Are all of these companies in similar stages? Did they all start with you four years ago or some started four years ago?
Some started two years ago and maybe in the last couple of months you have somebody else tell us about that.
[00:16:34] Dr. Santiago Munné: Yeah, most of them are at similar stages. So either they are all past proof of concept so that they are working on products that, they will reach the market in maybe a year, two years. a couple are have products already in the market, just starting selling them very early.
[00:16:59] Griffin Jones: So tell us, how do you, decide which companies are worth taking on?
[00:17:05] Dr. Santiago Munné: Yeah, so we want companies that have IP or that they are developing IP, so not very interested in marketplaces and things like that. And that will, that they could return, let's say, 20 X, Roy in 6 to 8 years, and in, in which we can really contribute ourselves also.
So we like to be very involved in these companies. So we have to understand it. and also we want to contribute. That's, the fun part to, to be involved with them. not just Silly money.
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[00:18:50] Griffin Jones: How do you determine what degree of intellectual property is worth it or, do they even have the intellectual property? Like you might look at something and you might say, that's not really.
That's not IP. how do you, determine that?
[00:19:07] Dr. Santiago Munné: Oh, it's, they should, develop patents. They should file for patents. And for instance, it's very difficult to get patents in AI. So it's one of the areas in which we're we haven't done anything because I think, you just need big data.
if you're a network, have the, data organized, and any network can create their own AI to select embryos, do an algorithm for hormone stimulation and so on. That's why we haven't touched that. Also, it's very difficult to protect it, algorithms.
[00:19:44] Griffin Jones: I want to talk about that. I want to get into, to what that actually might entail.
network being able to create their own AI algorithms. But first on the on the patent side for IPS, are you looking at folks that already have technology under patent? Is patent pending sufficient to you? How do you look at that?
[00:20:07] Dr. Santiago Munné: No, patent pending will be sufficient, provided that we understand the patent and we think that it may go somewhere.
[00:20:14] Griffin Jones: As you're building out this, map, tell us more just at a high level, what do you think is, missing most in the fertility space? You've been in the field for a long time now. You've gotten to see both incumbent fertility companies and fertility clinic networks. You've gotten to work in it.
You've gotten to build and sell a few companies and now you have these new young companies and you're, mapping together the needs that. that are missing. What are those needs in your view? How would you categorize the biggest two or three needs that are currently missing or are big challenges in the fertility space?
[00:20:53] Dr. Santiago Munne: Definitely. it's a big focus on automation. so the whole IVF lab should be automated. not because we're going to get rid of the people that were there. there is a lot of steps that are manual, just pipetting, in which the only thing that you could do is, make a mistake. It's not very rewarding to do it.
initially embryologists were scientists, now are becoming technicians. so if, the routine part that's where you can make mistakes, can be, automated, that will be great because it's great variability between clinics, and between. people working on the same clinic, from, for instance, I have a paper on, genetic abnormalities in embryos, in egg donors.
In theory, all egg donors are young. So you have, you should have a similar rate of, from some abnormalities in those embryos, but we had from 20 to 60 percent unemployed rates depending on the clinic. So obviously this means that there is too much variability. The problem with variability is that then when you launch a product, let's say when we launch PGD, for instance, some people would say, it doesn't work because they don't do it.
and it's very difficult then that a new technique catches on because everybody does it differently. And the results are not consistent. If you have, let's say you launch it in a platform, then it's much easier to see if it works or it doesn't work on. If it works, then you can innovate far faster and faster.
So these platforms, it's what we really need to innovate much faster. So yes, one thing is, Automation. I would say that's the, key. then there haven't been any, new developments in, drugs, for a long time or how those drugs are, delivered. We are not investing in that because it's a lot of money.
So for us at our level, we cannot invest in, in drugs. But there is a, it's a, it's an area where, there is not much innovation lately. and how the drugs are delivered also. Why do you suspect that is? The patents, from those drugs expire and it seems that the, those companies are, not interested in developing new ones.
I really don't know. but, yeah, there is, not much, innovation there or. People developing new drugs and deliveries of those drugs.
[00:23:47] Griffin Jones: So you're not aware of too much innovation happening on the drug side for pharmaceuticals. so then we'll go back to where you are more familiar with the innovation happening that you're trying to do, the automation in the IVF lab.
I want to describe to you how I understand the IVF lab and you tell me what. is being automated or can be automated. And this is what I understand as someone who does not have any clinical training or any scientific background. So that, the egg is retrieved, and goes into the lab through a window, typically in the OR, the embryologists then put the oocytes in media, and, and then think, I don't know if, there's something else that happens to it.
They grow it to day five blastocysts. they need to label, everything up where all of the specimens come from the, sperm, the oocytes, the donor trails. I don't know exactly where it's stored during that time. And then once embryos are created, the Most viable embryo is transferred back to the uterus and the other embryos are stored.
And those embryos can be stored on site or they can be stored off site. some may need to go to deposition and be discarded and, and there needs to be labeling and monitoring across that chain. but that's the extent. To, which I understand our audience understand this a lot more deeply, than I do.
But tell me in that chain, what isn't automated now? What needs to be automated?
[00:25:32] Dr. Santiago Munné: So right now there is very little that it's automated. The, we have probably two or three products. So for instance, you have the embryoscopes or incubators. with some time lapse that can capture images continuously. So you don't have to take the embers from the incubator to check them.
that's been a great events. And this really has as a platform that became probably the first platform that we had. And thanks to that, now we have, we can develop AI to select embryos. so that was a great. invention and, it's one of the few things that it's basically automated before we had to take the embers out of the incubator every, day to check them, that created changes in temperature and pH and so on.
so it was, a little bit detrimental for the embryos. and then we have, yeah, there are some machines that, that, can track where the eggs are frozen. so that's like tomorrow, for instance, and then you have a witnesses. So before, you had to have two people, watching each other, so you don't lose track of all these dishes, because mistakes were done and are done very commonly.
So you needed a witness system. now with, with these tags, you can, it's called a window system. And, by tagging all the dishes, you know where they are and it doesn't let you make mistakes when you are handling a bunch of dishes. but these are essentially small things. you still have to, for instance, do, ICSI.
So inject the sperm inside the egg. That's, is a company overture working on that. It's not commercialized. freeze eggs. Also there's no commercialized yet, but are people developing that overture? you could, for instance, when you do the transfer of the embryos, about 10 to 20%, it's thought that, those transfers don't go well.
because of, basically you are doing the transfer blindly with an ultrasound, but it's blindly. So now there is this company, Butterfly, that has put a lens on the catheter at the end. So we'll be able to see exactly where you put the, the embryos when you do the transfer. and. So once you start automating each one of these steps, then you can think about putting all these steps together in a machine that does the whole thing together.
But first, or at least how some of these companies are working is just, having technological blocks. that solved one problem first, and then you, once you solve it, then you put them together.
[00:28:40] Griffin Jones: That brings me back to your original thesis of having the incubator because there's all of these different problems and it's hard for one company to to solve for all of the individual challenges and this way you have an ecosystem of people that, can come together and fill in that map.
What about someone that would say, why not create just one massive company and have this one massive company do all of that from start to finish? What's the argument against that?
[00:29:20] Dr. Santiago Munne: No, there is no argument against that. It's that, you need a lot of financing and then your vision may not be the right one, right?
You may have a way to do it, but it may not work. So if you have, let's say, a competition of ideas on how it should work, I think it will be more successful at the end.
[00:29:46] Griffin Jones: So it either way you need a lot of financing, so that seem yeah, you'll need a lot of financing. either, whether it's a, number of different companies solving different problems or one aspiring mega lift company trying to, solve, it all themselves.
Seems like either way you need a lot of financing, and you could have errors in the vision one way or the other. But are you saying with. with having multiple smaller company or not necessarily even smaller, but starting smaller in scope, we're starting more focused in scope. Are you saying that it allows for more iteration?
[00:30:25] Dr. Santiago Munné: Because I think it would allow for, yeah, if let's say this big company tries to solve everything, but it fails in one point and doesn't know how to solve it or financing finishes or. Then the whole project goes to meanwhile, if you have a bunch of companies competing in each one of the technological models, some of them will succeed.
And then at the end, you'll have the whole pipeline.
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[00:31:40] Griffin Jones: So you talked about these areas for automation that you see is important and part of the reason that it fits with your investment thesis is because they've And Got patent pending. That sounds like that's one of the reasons why you haven't invested in a I companies because there's not a patent to be filed for their, and so I want to explore that a little bit more because you said if your networks could be able to create their own a I create their own algorithms and.
I'm wondering how accurate or how easy that is. people said the same thing about software for years, right? It's not until people said Oh, we could, we can create our own workflow software, we can create our own CRM and it's like in. The vast majority of cases, it's a lot better to use somebody else's software.
And so tell us about how this analogy either applies or doesn't apply with AI. right now,
[00:32:43] Dr. Santiago Munné: AI has been used mostly for MBU selection. And really, it seems that there is like a plateau around 70 percent or under the curve about. distinguishing which embryos will implant. and there are like probably 10 companies or more working on the same.
basically all of them had access to some network of centers where they got the data. so it, it seems that there is very little differentiation between one product and another. and to us, as I said, I think that if you have enough data, and a team of five or six people experts in that, you can do the same.
[00:33:34] Griffin Jones: So who do you think will win that race?
[00:33:40] Dr. Santiago Munné: I, think that, it's what they had to develop. It's been developed. As I said, we wouldn't invest on it right now, because there is not enough differentiation. and I think it's very easy to enter that market, right? That you have enough data.
[00:33:56] Griffin Jones: So it sounds like then they're missing something because in one of the things that's missing sounds like patents and it And you know a particular differentiator, but it's almost there It seems like it would be almost certain to me maybe I'm wrong that many of the technologies that you're incubating today will will be powered by A.
I. In some ways in the future. what would certain A. I. Companies need to evolve to the next? Would they need to incorporate with some kind of hardware or just something that requires a patent as you all start to incorporate? AI more, what do they need to do on their side?
[00:34:42] Dr. Santiago Munné: No, I, see AI as a tool, so it could be mathematics, physics, AI.
for instance, in Overture, so we develop, an automated XE device that, that uses AI. we have a couple of developers and that was enough to, for, the device to find where the sperm was, where the needles were, and injected perfectly. but it was a tool. It was not, it was just. Part of the, toolbox that we had to, develop the device.
So it's, I see it more as, as a tool, more, than a company or an entity itself.
[00:35:28] Griffin Jones: you talk about, the involvement from the incubator in the companies that you're selecting. What type of involvement do you have with them?
[00:35:40] Dr. Santiago Munné: for instance, I am, sorry, in addition of, other duties, but basically I'm, in the board of, three of the 15 companies that we have in incubator.
and I'm in contact every week with them meetings, introduction to investors, to clients, networks, going through, through the business plan, the whole thing.
[00:36:10] Griffin Jones: And so what type of advice are you giving them, let's say when it comes to forming the business plan, that this is a, company that's, in your incubator, they have something that you've liked.
How are you typically coaching them?
[00:36:27] Dr. Santiago Munne: Usually we're looking for either, products that fit the story. And sometimes they come from scientists that, that are, they have a very good idea. they know how to develop the idea, but they are not very good. Executors. And in those cases, what we've done in a couple of, instances was to then to put A-A-C-E-O, that, that was more executive than, a scientist.
It, the, combination of being a scientist and, a good, CEO, it's quite difficult. there are not too many examples. So usually either we find, these people or if not, then sometimes we had, help, we put CEOs, sometimes for a limited time, to just to help them.
[00:37:28] Griffin Jones: How often is it the case that people are seeking you out because they want that help with?
different business leadership. I'm of the bias that most founders want to remain in control of their company, but I guess it could be the case that there are some scientists out there that say, listen, I want to be a co founder. I want to be the chief scientific officer and I want to have a huge role in this, but I know that I'm not going to be the one to build out the company.
How often is it the case where people are pursuing new leadership and looking for your help with that versus you really have to. To encourage them to do it, I would say,
[00:38:07] Dr. Santiago Munné: all the starts up wanting to be the CEO and manage the company. But then they realize that I'm a scientist. What I enjoy is to developing products, discovering new things on the day to day.
It's a killer. And I don't like that. so I some of them rather better. Become want to be become a justice chief scientific officer and not have to deal with all the other things.
[00:38:37] Griffin Jones: And so you talked about, patents is one of the things that you're looking for in companies and if they don't have that differentiator, that's one of the things that maybe isn't a good fit for your incubator, but what else is a no go for you if you're looking at a, a new company that it's like, if it's like this, then probably not something we want to get involved with.
[00:39:01] Dr. Santiago Munne: One, it has to, by itself, it, needs to, be big enough the idea that it could sustain a company. So we don't want little things that, that we don't think, by itself would be, a viable company or a large company. Individuals are very important. so we need, to have a good, and I, guess it's more a feeling that person, has the vision, the right vision, to take it to, to the next level.
and yes, it, it, needs also to, to feed the, vision as I said, that we have.
[00:39:46] Griffin Jones: How about the appropriate level of proof of concept for your incubator? One of the things that I feel like I wouldn't necessarily be a great VC at is, I think I typically want to see more proof of concept from just about anything.
I want to see sales. And in many cases, that, you're dealing with technologies that aren't ready for that. That's why they're pursuing VC. That's why they're Pursuing being in an incubator, but my bias is to want to see something that says the only way that I know that the market wants this is because the market has paid for it.
People in the marketplace have parted ways with their dollars and that's what proves concept. My threshold is probably too high for, venture capital, but what is the appropriate level of proof of concept for companies in this stage in your view?
[00:40:42] Dr. Santiago Munné: Yeah, right now, I think we would be satisfied, with looking for companies that can solve a problem.
we know if they solve that problem, eventually they will sell. We know the whole market. we know all the other networks. we can help them to sell to these networks. and so if we think that the solution will be good, then we think That, then we would invest, we don't need to see sales.
[00:41:20] Griffin Jones: I guess that's why people like you exist, and then if you win big, and, and maybe I don't have a high enough risk tolerance yet to be a venture capital myself, and, but that's, also why I probably wouldn't be getting a 20x ROI either. that's why certain companies get. 20 XR wise, because they're investing at an earlier stage.
And, you've seen the, the venture capital, marketplace change a lot in the last two years with regards to funds. What do you see on the horizon now? Is it getting worse? Is it, staying steady? Is it, starting to improve? What do you think is going to happen in the next six months?
[00:42:12] Dr. Santiago Munné: it seems that, there was still some investment in, early stage and, now it seems that it started to, to change, and that's what I read because I haven't seen the change yet, but it's, it seems that, later stages will start to get, funded again.
But, right now at this stage that we are, it's still, difficult to get funding. so the, this change hasn't occurred yet.
[00:42:50] Griffin Jones: What are you doing to your strategy? Just hoping the market changes? Are you approaching new people, going to new different geographic markets? maybe if you were Looking at VCs in, in London or New York or Silicon Valley.
Now you're looking more at Singapore or New Delhi. I don't know, but, how, has your strategy changed?
[00:43:12] Dr. Santiago Munné: yes. so we, because I was, Living in, in Europe, we focus mostly on raising funds in Europe and it's much more difficult even to raise funds in Europe than in the U. S. So we are opening a chapter in the U.
S., to facilitate, more funding from the U. S. I know that the U. S. it's easy right now, but we hope to, to get a wider network of potential investors.
[00:43:46] Griffin Jones: you've given us a very honest look at the, the venture capital landscape in the fertility space at what it's like to incubate companies in that stage, the need in the marketplace that they're filling.
How would you like to conclude with our audience?
[00:44:08] Dr. Santiago Munné: yes, I think that most of the innovation in this field is gonna happen in the startups. Basically, there is little funding from government to invest in. Infertility and reproductive medicine. And now with, traditionally, most of the innovation happen in, in the clinics themselves, a lots of my ready doctors, innovating, scientists, but now with the consolidation in all these networks, all these be funded networks, I think that one of the first thing that it will go will be research and development in these networks.
So really, all the innovation it's going to happen probably, in these startups.
[00:44:58] Griffin Jones: Dr. Santiago Munné, thank you so much for coming on the Inside Reproductive Health podcast.
[00:45:03] Dr. Santiago Munné: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
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