Our Approach
How We Bridge Preeminent Innovators with San Francisco and Boston
Silicon Valley’s core investment philosophy is “bet on founders.” Research Bridge Partners takes that philosophy and extends it to midcontinent university scientists: we bet on the labs and the scientists who have or will co-found the company. That’s why Research Bridge Partners invented analytics to identify preeminent researchers whose talent and mindset can lead to pivotal advancements and who can be serial co-founders of successful science-based startups.
Our proprietary analytics study factors ranging from the volume and velocity of an innovator’s published research to the unconventionality of the research itself. This lets us create a heatmap reflecting the researcher’s unique approach to science. We also examine the ecosystem surrounding individual researchers.
Once we find these researchers, we position them to succeed by giving them the same support that they would have if they were in one of the deep, liquid commercialization markets on the coasts. Trying to do everything locally – as some university- and regionally-focused initiatives endeavor – inevitably hamstrings the researchers’ prospects for success, due to thin commercial networks and the inability to configure the market incentives downstream investors require.
We invest both not-for-profit and for-profit and capital. While both types of capital reside in separate funds, they nevertheless complement one another in the overall financial returns on our investments. The not-for-profit capital underwrites the cost of identifying and readying individual startup opportunities for downstream investors, whereas the for-profit capital enhances the returns on program related investments.
By investing both not-for-profit and for-profit capital, we enable investors to achieve their investment objectives—financial, societal, or a combination thereof.
Our approach is informed by the experiences of our co-founders: Isaac Barchas, who has deep roots in mid-continent translational research, and Reid Hoffman, who has successfully scaled Silicon Valley startups for decades.
We invest both not-for-profit and for-profit capital to enable investors to achieve their investment objectives—financial, societal, or a combination thereof.
Asset Managers
Downstream investors can target gains that are on par with those produced by leading biomedical funds through high-quality, portfolio-ready investment opportunities that might otherwise be overlooked and cost-prohibitive because of their mid-continent origin.CEOs and Other Scaling Business Talent
C-suite executives who have successfully scaled startups can bring their talents to bear to increase human health and wellbeing, by accessing extraordinary opportunities to build and create economic value – opportunities that may well be overlooked or not considered because of their mid-continent origin.Philanthropists
Individuals, family offices and philanthropic foundations can enhance the economic and societal impact of their philanthropic investments in a research university – including cures for life-threatening diseases – while attracting additional investments from other donors. They, too, can identify and invest in preeminent innovators capable of solving societal problems that are a priority to them.