Gm Brazeryens. Have you ever washed down six beignets with a hurricane? Us neither.
[Welcome to Issue Number 14 of The House Brazeryen, where we break down the latest Brazen Bio, Brazen Capital, and bio-startup-related news for you fortnightly, in roughly 5 minutes.]
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Brazen Capital reveals logo re-launch featuring World of Women NFT
The BrazenVerse has always been a bit different. Itâs kind of our thing⌠being, identifying, and supporting â¨outlier⨠founders.
As such, Brazen Capital is our fund to launch the next generation of scientist-CEOsâwith an emphasis on women and underrepresented founders. We wire money, offer our help as needed, and otherwise get the fuck out of the way. The first company we backedâGuardian Bio (YC S22)âis woman-led and 2 of the 3 founders are female. Our mission is at least half of all companies we back will be woman-led.
We are doubling down on this mission by revealing our revamped Brazen Capital logo featuring an NFT from the World of Women Galaxy (WoWG) collection by digital artist Yam Karkai (on her birthday today!!!).
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
World of Women (WoW) was the first woman-led NFT project which launched to major fanfare last year to nurture âa thriving community celebrating representation, inclusivity and equal opportunities for all.â Much more than a digital asset and online community, WoW is providing tangible value in the real world by reinvesting revenues in other women-led projects, offsetting their entire historical carbon footprint, and establishing the WoW Emergency Fund with $500,000 to âhelp address urgent humanitarian and planetary emergencies across the globe.â They also throw a killer party IRL.
Notable WoW owners include, Snoop (aka, Cozomo deâ Medici), Eva Longoria, Reese Witherspoon, Steve Aoki, Guy Oseari, Gary Vaynerchuk, Shonda Rhimes, Liam Payne, Kerry Washington, Huda Beauty, Madonna, and others.
Our NFT is one of the rare âRoyal Warriorsâ and âPotion Sellersâ in the collection which we felt was fitting of a biotech founder. She also looks like a goddam BOSS.
âShawn Carbonell, MD, PhD, Founding Partner
Brazen Capital is the first ever VC fund to use NFT IP in their logo and you can stare at her all day at our landing page (brazen.capital or brazencapital.vc)⌠and probably on merch soon!
Y Combinator Demo Day: Summer 2022
Y Combinator held their ever anticipated Demo Day virtually last week on September 7 and 8, 2022. It was an absolute Zoom moshpit with over 100 companies continuously pitching each day starting at 9am. Although that sounds like a lot, it was completely dwarfed by the 414 companies in the earlier W22 batch!!! WOT. đł
Congratulations once again to Ananya Zutshi and Ricky Barrett, PhDâthe cofounders of our first ever investment Guardian Bio âon their successful Demo Day debut!
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
We are grateful Brazen Capital was one of only 2,421 investors worldwide invited to participate. Unfortunately, the S22 Demo Day site is not public and only available for a month. Weâd tell you more⌠but weâd have to kill you.
Confessions of a Brain Surgery Dropout: The Road Show
âBrazenVerseâ founderâShawn Carbonell, MD, PhDârecently spoke frankly to medical and graduate students from LSU and Tulane in New Orleans about his ever-evolving journey to advance medicine from student to scientist to founder to creator to investor. The talk was held in the beautiful new New Orleans BioInnovation Center (NOBIC) on Canal Street, at the border of the French Quarter.
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
Thank you to the Biotechnology Interest Org (BIO) at LSU Health New Orleans Medical School for the invitation and for organizing the event. Thank you also to Kris Khalil at NOBIC and the BioFund for sponsoring and hosting.
Other Road Show dates to be announced shortly. Reach out HERE if you are interested in hosting/sponsoring a Road Show event!
VC Corner: Slicing the Equity Pie
Contributed by Scott Alpizar, PhD â Last newsletter I laid out three main types of funding with the promise of taking a deeper look at each over the next few weeks. So, here we are! First up is equity funding⌠or money in exchange for a percentage of your company.
The most common place that youâll encounter equity funding is from venture capital firms (VCs). The people working there, specifically the General Partners (GPs), are the people youâll usually need to convince to invest in your company.
That (obviously) isnât always easy! VCs are often looking for companies in the growth stageâones that also already have a viable product*. Thatâs not always realistic for a biotech company, at least not in the initial rounds of funding. Thatâs a big part of what makes VC investing so risky and why VCs perform extensive due diligence prior to writing the check.
But how do you know how much equity the VC will receive? Well, itâs calculated based on how much money they are going to invest and how much they think your company is worthâaka, your valuation.
By this point your head may be spinning. The VC has dragged you through all this diligence and they decided how much your company is worthâand how much of it theyâre going to take on top of that! Itâs completely warranted for you to ask what you get out of this. Letâs break it down.
BRAZEN BREAKDOWN
Money. Duh! I know this is obvious, but this is the key to being able to move your company forward through all of the necessary R&D. Biotech is capital intensive, so donât look past how important it is that you got the investment.
Confidence. Getting your first investment is usually the hardest. But if youâve got that, someone believes in you. This validates your company and technology for the next investors that you may need to raise money from.
Mentorship and Networking. If youâve picked the right investor, theyâve likely done this before. The team probably has plenty of experience with their own startups or helping other companies find success. Theyâll have the connections you need to move the company forward.
Dilution. Hey, I never said this had to be a positive list. To make room for your new investorâs equity on your cap table, the current shareholders (yes, you) will need to give some up.
I want to touch on that last one for a second. As a founder whoâs worked hard to start your company, you probably donât love the idea of giving some of your ownership/control up. But this isnât always a bad thing! You may own less, but the overall value has increased. Dilution can be tough to wrap your head aroundâand there are certainly some considerations when facing itâso weâll go through that in detail in a future issue!
Overall, getting VC funding certainly isnât the end-all be-all. You need to keep making progress and hitting your milestones. Even then, nothing is guaranteed. If you canât get (or donât yet need) VC/equity funding, there are other types of funding to look for, which weâll also look at in more detail the next few weeks. Stay tuned!
*[ed.âBTW, this is growth investing, not venture capital tbh⌠Will Quists' words, not ours đ]
đ Brazen Snax
đŚ Two and a half years later we are finally putting vaccines in the right place
đł Take a drink every time this article mentions the word âanusâ
đ Virus-sensing cells may ironically drive deadly cytokine storm in COVID
âđ˝ Affirmative Action for women academics in STEM?
đ Science paper makes stunning Hail Mary conclusion with ZERO DATA
đ¤đ˝ Why mammals rule the earth: we are born ready to rock
đ¤ The open book test dilemma. Where are the quants of healthcare?
â° TikTokCrak: Our favorite TedTok atm
đŞ Carveout
Musk. Thiel. Levchin. Hoffman. Sacks. The dramatic story of PayPal as told by Jimmy Soni in a book simply entitled: âThe Foundersâ. Deserves to be an Aaron Sorkin screenplayâword has it that Sacks acquired the rights to the movie! Canât wait.
đđ˝ A Dose of Gratitude
We are grateful for the founder and President of the Biotechnology Interest Organization at Louisiana State University Health Science CenterâMD-MPH student Bryanna Reinhardtâfor being a gracious host last week during our visit to New Orleans.
đ Brazen Meme
âď¸ Feedback
If you like, please like. Feel free to tweet all other thoughts, questions, and insults to us @brazenbio. Bring it. No, really. COMEđđ˝ATđđ˝USđđ˝BROđđ˝