The voluminous lobby of WashU’s Neuroscience Research Building hummed on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning as 150 people tapped into the local innovation landscape mingled during the second annual Startup Connect.
The event—put on by BioGenerator, the investment and startup arm of the nonprofit BioSTL— was billed as a vehicle for high-potential startups, investors, and local ecosystem partners to talk further about the innovation that’s bubbling up in St. Louis. People associated with twelve startups, with focuses ranging from agtech to medical devices, also had a chance to pitch and receive feedback from potential investors.
Keep up with local business news and trends
We will never send spam or annoying emails. Unsubscribe anytime.
This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.
Go Deeper: Startup Connect provided an important opportunity to stay tapped into cutting-edge developments for many attendees, including Ann Guggisberg. The chief science officer of the AI-focused startup Valutis had recently left a position with BioGenerator and saw this week’s event as a way to hear updates on some of the companies she had been tracking. “I really want to keep my sense of community,” she said.
Mark Holekamp of the local investment firm Expedition Ag Partners explained that the event featured people who can directly invest (like him) as well as people who can open the doors to future funding. “You never know when these organic connections will lead to an investment opportunity,” he says.
Plastomics CEO Tania Seger said that pitching her agtech startup to a room that included people with biomedical backgrounds is not something she typically does. She believes the experience has unlocked new potential for her company. She said she heard from companies interested in harnessing the protein expression that Plastomics figured out how to do with specific plant traits in chloroplasts. “There’s a crossover in St. Louis,” she said. “That’s what is unique about this conference.”
The Bigger Picture: BioSTL’s CEO and founding president Donn Rubin says Startup Connect helps telegraph what his organization and the broader innovation landscape are up to. “It helps raise the awareness of what this asset means in St. Louis,” he said. “I met a number of investors who said they wouldn’t invest if BioGenerator hadn’t done due diligence on a company.”
On this point, BioGenerator senior managing director Jim McCarter shared that the companies that presented at least year’s Startup Connect went on to raise $20 million in pre-seed and seed and bridge rounds, as well as two bringing in $160 million in Series C rounds. Most of them also now have products on the market generating revenue, in clinical trials, or in advanced stages of regulatory approval.
Still, Rubin says there’s room to improve, especially with connections beyond the region. Only 24 attendees of the 150 came from beyond St. Louis, including Jim Sterling, who traveled from Rolla. As Missouri S&T’s vice provost and founding dean of the university’s new Kummer College of Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Economic Development, Sterling hopes to see his trip reciprocated.
“It’s part of the same ecosystem. [Interstate] 44 runs both ways,” he said. “We want more folks from here to go there.”
