Partner at Amadeus Capital Partners.

Pierre Socha

Pierre Socha is a leading partner in the Early Stage Fund of Amadeus Capital Partners. He joined the company in 2012 and primarily focuses on the Health and Bio sectors. He has momentously invested in numerous companies like Constructive Bio, Quibim, Natrox, and more. Pierre is a post-graduate in Mathematics and Econometrics from Aix-Marseille University, France. Before joining the hands-on entrepreneurship in Amadeus, he was an analyst at Natixis. Eventually, he joined the founding team of Avesthagen in India and successfully assisted in growing the business over a decade. This was a turning point for him to understand the journey of building companies and the necessity of investment to retain sustainable growth.

What are your current roles and responsibilities in the organization, and what are the key milestones that have shaped your journey within the health and bio sector space?

I currently hold the position of leading partner in Amadeus Capital Partners. But I have altogether a different side of the story to reach here. I was very keen to be a successful investor, so in 2001, I joined forces with one of the Indian biotech companies, Avesthagen. I have enormously helped the team grow, and by the time I resigned, the company was built as one of the leading research entities in India. During that time, my team and I were focused on various sectors like agritech and food tech, including medical and functional food types. We aligned with multiple food companies, from startups to giant corporations. A few years later, we shifted from that space and ventured into population genetics when we encountered a specific disease ailed by a population in India known as Parsis, which originated from Iraq. Although they immigrated to India about 1300-1400 years ago, they need to be more flexible about building relationships outside their community. So, the diseases are particular, which makes it an efficient reference population to look at novel biomarkers. At the same time, the community is known for a longer lifespan, which propelled us to start with population programs. Eventually, we tied up with pharmaceutical companies worldwide, driving me to continue my entrepreneurial journey. 

In the next phase of my career, I extended the scope of my knowledge from life sciences to the technology space. I comprehended the importance of technology in the present time, especially connecting with the field of life sciences. Gradually, I and my team started investing across the technology space to elevate the operation of the life sciences industry. In the coming years, we plan to invest in quantum materials and photonics, AI in general, for accelerating growth and sustainability in the life sciences and tech industries.

What are some of the potential challenges in the process of investing in diverse sectors of the biotech and healthcare industry?

The healthcare industry has a prolonged cycle of the bottom line, which is the first and foremost challenge that we, as investors, endure. The investment process in the life sciences space needs to go from a prototype to ideation in the market while making a brand or a company since the industry adheres to strict compliance. At the same time, reimbursement is necessary to secure IP; biotech companies must strive for these critical areas before accessing the market from a commercial standpoint. We, being early investors, are responsible for the heavy lifting to guide the next generation of investors who will enter the business later.

The amount of effort and dedication in life sciences needs to be double than what we do in cyber security and fintech. We also need to understand the core problems of the end users to have a clear vision of entering into the market and serving the best needs.

Another key challenge is diverting from the central role and leaping toward profitability. Dealing with multidisciplinary teams could be challenging to manage if there is inadequate expertise and experience in the investment process since every sector has a distinct need and objective.

What are some of the technological advancements in the healthcare and bio sector industry that are promising for future investments?

I have come through both short and long-term advances in the industry. The long-term progress comprises quantum computing, AI, and more data plugged into technologies. As investors, we should be adaptive to these new advancements and see how they deploy in the market. The adoption cycle for these technologies could be lengthy, so we should be able to balance risks as investors. Short-term progress is more about technologies that have a faster adoption rate. For instance, computer vision is used to discover biomarkers or signatures in pathology or radiology.

Adopting technological advancements in life sciences should be as fast as possible. For instance, Philips went from early testing of its MRIs to mass deployment within one and a half years. Similarly, another Sweden-based company, Tobi, is known for eye tracking. It helps advertising companies to see where a user might spend time looking at a page to place marketing material appropriately. Today, it has become a leading platform in the life sciences industry regarding cross-application in technology. So, computer vision has become a trending and cutting-edge solution, building AI models for image annotation and assisting life science companies in a centralized manner.

What would be one key advice for young professionals to follow a similar career path in life sciences?

Becoming an investor in life science is very subjective, but understanding the core aspects of building a company as an entrepreneur, scientist, or technologist is invaluable, especially for early-stage investors. It is a never-ending race with many challenges that investors undergo, and it is more than just signing off on commercial deals. I have faced ups and downs throughout the journey of being an entrepreneur and realized how far one has to go to build a company successfully. So, it’s a gradual process to be committed as an investor to invest in technologies wisely and understand the current needs of the founders. As per my experience, I have seen investors and co-investors are too number-driven. Their primary focus is to maximize revenue by cutting off various expenses. This money-making mindset distracts them from the core investment process, where the emphasis should be more on the technology and its clinical outcome that helps cultivate flexibility in investment decisions.

“We are a global technology investor, assisting entrepreneurs in building companies from ground level to global growth. We primarily focus on AI and machine learning, cyber security, digital health and media, fintech, and medical technology.”

The role of investors is not limited to the needs of the founders; instead, they should also assist the companies in expanding their growth. As an investor, we consistently build a connection with the founders and other members of the entire ecosystem. The discussion between the founders should lead them to an efficient decision, for instance, whether to obtain a project or first commercial deal, identifying executives willing to jump from large corporations into startups. This kind of understanding develops once we delve into the journey.

In Amadeus, most of us are former entrepreneurs with first-hand experience as an operator in the life sciences space. So, getting indulged from the grassroots level, my key advice to the young professionals would be not to run on revenues; instead, to figure out the needs of both startups and giant companies and genuinely help the entrepreneurs walk through every thick and thin and help them grow their business extensively.