Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is BioAccel™?
A: BioAccel™ is a first-of-its-kind, totally independent non-profit organization that drives economic development through commercialization of late-stage basic and applied research in the life sciences.
Q: What does BioAccel™ do?
A: BioAccel™, through it's BioAccel™ Commercialization Programs, promotes new business venture formation by provides funding and/or business support to very early stage technologies in hopes of launching new companies or otherwise commercializing research discoveries into new products or services. These efforts create new jobs, attracts additional capital and facilitates accelerated public access to these new technologies. BioAccel™ also provides educational opportunities to entrepreneurs, students and the public.
Q: What does 'business support' mean?
A: Many new life science companies fail. One reason for these failures is that the knowledge needed to develop and commercialize a technology is much different than the knowledge needed to perform the research fundamental to the technology. BioAccel™, through its BioAccel™ Commercialization Programs educates, supports, and promotes new company formation and development to increase the likelihood of successful new companies. BioAccel™ can provide business support in terms of helping to launch a new company, performing market analysis, creating a business plan, identifying affordable facilities, identifying sources of capital, and building an appropriate management team.
Q: Isn't BioAccel™ just a venture capital firm?
A: Absolutely not. BioAccel™'s main activity is accelerating the commercialization of late-stage research by providing funding and business support to technologies directly out of a research lab. A successful outcome of providing support to these early stage technologies is the launch of a new company or the execution of a license to a third party. BioAccel™ will also attempt to help these new companies by providing additional support, which may include additional pre-seed funding. However, the goal of this support is to sufficiently develop the technology to allow downstream investors, such as venture capitalists, to become interested in investing in the validated technology/company. At that point, BioAccel™ has succeeded on its goal of validating and commercializing early stage technologies and will expect the downstream investors to maintain support for these companies.
BioAccel™'s activities are centered around economic development (workforce development, education and stimulating the commercialization of Life Science discoveries). While BioAccel™ hopes to obtain a modest return on any investments made, revenue obtain through these means is secondary to the benefits of new job creation, new company formation, and increasing the public's access to new Life Science technologies.
Any revenues that are obtained from companies that grow with the help of BioAccel™ will be used to support its BioAccel™ Commercialization Programs.
Q: Does BioAccel™ provide support to existing companies?
A: Only in certain situations and only with the goal of providing the company the support it requires to develop its technology to a point where downstream investors become interested in providing investments. BioAccel™'s main activity is accelerating the commercialization of late-stage research through its BioAccel™ Commercialization Programs by providing funding and business support to technologies directly out of a research lab. One of the goals of this support is to create new companies. BioAccel™ may continue its support, including financial support, for companies that are created with the assistance of BioAccel™. BioAccel™ may also provide financial and/or business support to companies that were launched without prior assistance from BioAccel™. Perhaps more importantly than the financial assistance, BioAccel™ will provide business support services to ensure the company is creating the right infrastructure to increase the likelihood of success. BioAccel™ would only provide such assistance to the very earliest-stage companies, typically requiring a pre-money valuation of less than $3M.
Q: Who decides on who gets BioAccel™ support?
A: BioAccel™ is a totally independent organization, allowing it to make objective decisions. BioAccel™ management triages all received applications to ensure they are eligible for BioAccel™ Commercialization Program support. Eligible applications are then sent to a small group of BioAccel™'s extensive network of external business and scientific subject matter experts who reviews the scientific validity and commercial application of the application. Applications that receive high reviews are then introduced to the BioAccel™ Board of Directors who makes the ultimate decision about which applications may participate in the BioAccel™ Commercialization Programs.
Q: How is BioAccel™ funded?
A: BioAccel™ expects to have 2 main sources of revenue: (1) donations from private individuals, foundations, government and industry (2) income generated from BioAccel™-supported companies and licenses. Currently, BioAccel™ is fully funded by private philanthropy. In the long term, BioAccel™ hopes to generate enough revenue through income generated from BioAccel™-supported companies and licenses to sustain our programs. However, BioAccel™ will always depend on philanthropy to extend and expand our BioAccel™ Commercialization Programs.
