Bexar County Commissioners presented Heather Hanson, President of BioMedSA, a proclamation of Biofest Week. Biofest Week is a chance to celebrate San Antonio’s largest economic sector, healthcare and bioscience during the week before Fiesta.
Biofest Week was started with Biofest Invest in person for the first time in 2022. Biofest Invest connects bioscience entrepreneurs with potential investors, valuable information, and resources that can help them move forward. It is also a pitch competition for Texas companies with 2023 prizes including: a $10,000 cash prize to the winner and a $10,000 services prize package split between the top 2 winners. This prize package will provide them with key advice to: grow their companies, receive funding and avoid common mistakes. All pitching companies each received $1200 of investment and funding training.
Biofest Invest is supported by over 40 sponsors who recognize the importance of helping startups, as one of them could be the next 3M KCI, homegrown right here. Investors come from all over the country to interact with the bioscience startups; 9 of them will be speakers at the event. To date, Biofest Invest pitching companies have raised 0ver $2M, including over 20 jobs staying in San Antonio.
Countless relationships have been made through Biofest Invest, including pivotal relationships for the 2022 pitch competition winner, San Antonio company, Novothelium. As a direct result of Biofest Invest, Novothelium secured a contract with a local organization, NVision, for lab space and manufacturing capabilities. They also connected with another Biofest Invest sponsor, Bridge PTS who they leveraged to perform their pre-clinical study, instead of outsourcing it to a company in Maryland as they had planned. Their product is the first ever nipple reconstruction matrix for breast cancer survivors that could someday help someone you love.
Biofest Week also includes Biofest Tours, a deep dive into 5 key bioscience assets here in Bexar County. Investors, developers, and life science support firms from across the county as well as local companies wanting more information will spend a day visiting these key assets on April 18, 2023. Participants will get in depth exposure to the people, facilities, and labs that support this industry, including: BioBridge Global, Southwest Research Institute, Texas Biomedical Research Institute, Nvision, and VelocityTX.
