"On-Purpose" Decision Making for your Medical Innovation Venture

On 29 November 2023, we were pleased to welcome our guest speaker, Marc Orchard to our Medical Innovators community.

Meet Marc Orchard from Planet Startup

Marc Orchard is the CEO and founder of new venture, Planet Startup. Along with Partner Rhys Cupples, Planet Startup is a company that provides fractional CFO services and financial management for high growth, tech startups.

Marc is also the Entrepreneur in Residence at UQ Ventures and about to start the latest cohort into the UQ iLab program. Prior to this, he was Director of Startups at BDO, establishing and running their intensive 12 month Startup CEO School Program. He brings a wealth of in depth financial backup, a massive knowledge of everything capital raising and startups, along with an ‘on-purpose’ driven approach.

Key Insights: "On Purpose" Decision Making is Critical for Medical Startups

Some of the insights that Marc shared with the group included:

Know your personal purpose as a founder

In the general startup community, many founders are dreaming of building a billion-dollar, unicorn company. Executing that dream requires not just the innovation/technology, but also, the ability, commitment and focus on establishing the business that drives it - growing a large team, establishing business systems and accountabilities.

Often medical founders have a different intent though - many are successful clinicians, and their primary work/business/wealth is from their medical practice. While there is passion, energy and effort in the innovation journey, they may not want to build 'the business'. This is important, so that you can define your personal 'success' - in this case, success may be an earlier 'exit' or acquistion of your technology into a larger company capable of taking it to market or using existing distribution channels for growth.

Capital Raising Forecasting

While the general talk in the startup community is that fundraising has slowed, there are still active investments happening. Medical innovations tend to continue to be funded, but generally by specific health-oriented investors who understand the long runway to market and are willing to join that journey.

Marc predicts that the investment market may start to increase around the end of 2025 and wold anticipate seeing increasing investment activity around then.

He advises that it's going to be critical for startups of all types to actively plan their investment or fundraising strategy, account for longer lead time to investment, and manage their runway carefully in order to survive long enough to gain their next investment.

Getting in touch with Marc

Planet Startup focusses on high-growth technology businesses, however Marc is active in the community of innovators and entrepreneurs. You can contact Marc here:

Ontogo: https://ontogo.com.au/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcorchard