Nucleate San Diego Inside Series: Venture Creation in Biotech (VC 101)

Join Nucleate San Diego for Venture Creation in Biotech, a discussion on how a research result becomes a company, what has to be in place before a first raise, and which early decisions are hardest to reverse.

Most biotech companies in San Diego start inside a lab. The path from a promising dataset to an incorporated venture runs through a set of unglamorous choices: who owns the intellectual property, who is on the founding team, what the company is actually going to sell, and how much capital it takes to answer the first question that matters.

This session covers that groundwork. We will look at how founding teams come together, how technical and market risk get assessed before there is a product, what a first financing typically looks like, and where first-time founders most often lose time. It is aimed at researchers considering a company, people who have already started one, and anyone who wants a clearer picture of what the process asks of you.

This event is part of the Nucleate Inside Series, a chapter-wide program exploring the major avenues through which AI is influencing biotechnology, including drug discovery, lab automation, cell and gene therapy, and clinical translation, alongside the fundamentals of venture creation and building a biotechnology company.

Panelists:

Rachel Dutton: Rachel Dutton is the Executive Director of Innovation for the School of Biological Sciences at UC San Diego, with a research program on fermented foods and human health and a career spanning academia, startups, and the broader innovation ecosystem

Brittany de Kouchkovsky: Brittany is a Director on the University Relations team, focused on enhancing relationships with the more than 100 academic institutions partnered with the fund and connecting universities and scientists with the business side of biotech and tech startups. She also supports the investment team with technology sourcing.

Previously, Brittany was an Associate Director at Orange Grove Bio, where she spent five years sourcing and translating academic science into investable therapeutics companies with roles on both the venture and operations teams. During that time she was a founding member and Operations Manager for the OGB portfolio company Preservation Bio. Prior to OGB, she worked for over five years in R&D including at Prognosys Biosciences, The Salk Institute for Biological Studies, and BP Biofuels.

Brittany received her PhD in Immunobiology from Yale University and obtained her B.S. in Molecular Biology from the University of California, San Diego

About the Host:
Nucleate is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to empowering the next generation of biotech leaders. With chapters spanning 41 geographic regions and participation from over 280 academic institutions, Nucleate sparks new intellectual communities and embeds emerging talent within a global biotech community. Through open-access educational programming, Nucleate helps democratize biotech innovation — removing barriers and helping founders concentrate on building transformational technologies.

Visit www.nucleate.org for more information, and visit https://nucleate.org/privacy-policy/ to read our privacy policy.

We want to thank our HQ supporters for championing our open-access mission and empowering the next generation of biotech entrepreneurs!

Platinum: Eli Lilly and Company, Genentech, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, MilliporeSigma
Philanthropic Support: Lyda Hill Philanthropies
Preferred Partners: Pillar VC, Amino Collective, Excedr, Mercury, Brex, Fedsprout, Browne Consulting
In-Kind Support: AcademicLabs, Lens.org, SynBioBeta