NYA FOUNDER SPOTLIGHT ‒ LARRY TIFFANY, EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN MEDCURA
Larry Tiffany is a serial entrepreneur having led Medcura from early prototypes to successful commercialization after founding and selling the neuro-molecular testing company DioGenix. Larry now serves as Executive Chairman of Medcura as the company works towards becoming the next standard of care in surgical bleeding management. Prior to DioGenix, Larry held positions in Sr. Management at Ore Pharmaceuticals (CBO), Gene Logic (SVP & GM, Genomics) and Genetraks (US President).
How did you first meet New York Angels?
I was introduced to NYA through our Securities Council Ben Novak at Morgan Lewis while we were raising our seed round of financing at Medcura. After we had some success raising one third of the round, Ben suggested that we connect with a really great set of investors in New York that he thought would be interested in our story. When we applied and first pitched to NYA, I met Tom Blum, Kit McQuiston, and Mark Schneider.
What were you looking for in investors when you were fundraising, and why did you choose to work with New York Angels?
To start, NYA had the capital and were willing to make an investment, but what really intrigued us was the breadth and the depth of not only the capital capabilities. New York Angels wouldn't just put money into the seed round, but they would be interested in following on and maintain their pro rata, and that also included not just individual investors, but the New York Angel side fund too. We also had the great opportunity to meet Vijay Aggarwal, who has become a great friend of the company since he has been a board observer since late 2016. With NYA, we have the benefit of both a great investment group, but also a great leader like Vijay who has really brought some additional value add to Medcura.
What was the process like for you when you were fundraising?
When you are putting seed rounds together for early-stage life sciences companies, there is a process to stitch together a syndicate. The process is unlike a typical venture syndicate or institutional syndicate, where you may find a lead, and then the lead has a series of regular co-investors who they introduce to help curate the round. In an early-stage life science company, the company does all of the work to complete their own fundraising round. Medcura was fortunate to put together this seed round with New York Angels, Harvard Business School Angels, Robin Hood Ventures, DMV Angels, M Ventures, Tedco, plus a few others who invested in past companies of mine and knew some of the management team.
What have you enjoyed most about working with New York Angels?
NYA is extremely organized. When I first pitched to NYA, Tom and Kit did a great job of creating a process and then driving our company through the process. We had a series of diligence calls and meetings. I visited New York from Maryland three or four times. Tom and Kit also acted as cheerleaders and as diligence sources. Halfway through the process with New York Angels. They then, introduced me to Vijay. I remember having lunch with Vijay for the first time just outside the Philadelphia train station. He’s a great guy and an incredible investor. He took me through the paces of: 1) Help me understand how this is a viable business; 2) Help me understand how you plan to hit map value inflection milestones; and 3) Help me understand how you are differentiated in the market for the different verticals that you are going after. After that meeting, Vijay himself became an investor, and then he became the de facto lead for tNew York Angels as the Board Observer.
What advice would you give other founders who are looking to fundraise?
You must have an almost unrealistic unequivocal belief in yourself and in what you're doing. Companies are hard to start, and even harder to run. Life Sciences startups are no exception; they are filled with failures and challenges. Life Sciences companies are complex because we deal with both human biology and a highly regulated industry. If you really believe in your mission, and you believe in the team, and all of the people that you're building your company with, then your chance of being successful increases tremendously.
What advice would you give other early-stage investors who are looking to invest in companies?
It’s important to be transparent. If you don't like something, just say it. If you know what it will take you to make an investment, bring it up in diligence. The hardest part for early-stage companies is not the failure rate in terms of meeting investors and converting them into capital, it's actually the process of spending time with investors who either 1) do not have much interest in investing; or 2) are not very clear about what they need to know to be comfortable with the investment.
New York Angels has a solid process, and it is a great one for other early-stage investors to model after. A good investment process includes:
1) Have a good lead team.
2) Be very clear about your expectations.
3) Be very clear about your timelines and process.
4) Be very clear in diligence about what you understand about the company, what you really appreciate and also what gives you some concern or needs more work.
What else can NYA provide beyond fundraising?
We truly appreciate all of the early-stage investors that came into our company: New York Angels, Harvard Business School Angels, Robin Hood. In the beginning we did not understand how galvanizing those relationships can be and how sophisticated and connected that group of investors are. We have benefited so much from introductions, not just to other investor groups, but to partners, like auditors, and all of those relationships that early-stage companies always need. Founders may be domain experts about what they're doing, but that doesn't mean they know how to setup a really good server with a firewall or they may not have good diversified banking relationships. Medcura was fortunate because we started off with a fairly seasoned management team. I appreciate that New York Angels and our other early-stage investors offered us capabilities that have absolutely nothing to do with investment capital – but instead they offered invaluable human capital.
What has driven Medcura's success?
The people. While there are a lot of great technologies in life sciences – Medcura certainly has one – the people are what make all of this work. Early-stage investments, especially life science investments, are not for the faint of heart. They’re very, very difficult and take an extraordinary amount of time and planning. Everybody looks good on a good day, and everybody is happy when we can all high five; when a new round is done; or a patent comes in; or the FDA gives you a positive ruling; or when you see a sales lift. It’s on the other days, the hard days, when you really learn who is in the boat with you – the days when somebody else buys the department that you have been working on for over two years, and the new owners do not really care about your project; or when the FDA gives you a confounding or hard to understand answer. It's on those days when you really learn who is in the boat with you. If you have the right people, and those people are diligent and resilient, then you can overcome any challenge.
Do you have any other advice for founders?
You have to prepared for a lot of failure. There are the failures that you did not do right and didn't think about enough. Then there are the worst kind of failures, which are the ones that you did think about ahead of time – you tried to plan around it, but it still happened.
One of the very first board meetings Vijay was at, we were discussing entering our first vertical because we already had an FDA clearance for high-performance, first aid products. Vijay asked, “What's your Plan B?” We said we have this great partner. Then Vijay said, “That sounds great. What’s your Plan C?” We said, there are some other people we’ve talked to and we could also do it ourselves. After he asked about Plan D, we said, maybe if all of those things don’t work, maybe this isn’t the best vertical for us to go into. Vijay then said to me, “Larry, unfortunately a lot of my life ends up in Plan C and D. It just does. I like what you said. I like what you’re thinking, but you have to have a better Plan D than what you have right now. So we worked to develop a better Plan D, and we ended up going with Plan C. Early-stage companies are a process; it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
