Editing Neucruit

{{Cover Image|[[File:Neucruit Thesis cover image.jpg]]}}

'''About Neucruit:'''

Neucruit is a B2B solution for innovators bringing life- saving medications to market. We connect innovators with patients at scale, making clinical research accessible to patients by reaching them through conversations on their native channels. Our solution combines data and creativity to reach, qualify and register patients to clinical studies.

'''Neucruit’s vision:'''

A world where everyone is involved in their healthcare discoveries.

'''Status on current round:'''

Seeking to raise £1.5M for an 18-month runway.

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==Investment Interview==

'''Explain what your venture does.'''

Neucruit's software creates conversations using AI & NLP technology to source and secure patients for clinical trials. We're actively: * Overhauling the $150b clinical trial market starting with direct-to-patient recruitment * Reducing clinical trial recruitment timelines by over 90% * Growing a database of patient insights and clinical trial metadata.

'''What stage is your business?'''

Product built, initial clients, regulatory/ethics approval in 2 major hospitals in London.

'''Give an overview of your startup's financing history.'''

Neucruit closed their £330,000 pre-seed round in December 2020 with £50,000 founder contribution, £205,000 Innovate UK grant award (£295,000 total award with 70% match funding) and £75,000 from Acceleprise VC Accelerator Program. Pre-seed funds have thus far been used to support 3 FTE's and 3 PTE's (>75%), technical subcontractors (<15%) as well as legal, accounting and insurance providers (<10%). Neucruit's burn rate is on average £19,000/month giving a runway of 11 months (until March 2022) provided no change in PTE status.

'''Explain the ownership structure of your company.'''

93% Livia Ng (Founder + CEO) 7% Acceleprise VC (Active on next priced round).

'''How many employees do you have?'''

Livia Ng | Founder, CEO (FTE - 60+ hours/week) Vasilis Nikolau | CTO (FTE - 50+ hours/week) David Chia | CCO (PTE - 10+ hours/week) Adilla Immambocus | CCGO Culture, Growth, Marketing (PTE - 10+ hours/week) Sami Mourad | CAI AI Strategy and Dev (PTE - 20+ hours/week) Chloe Lortal | Head of Operations (FTE - 40+ hours/week).

'''Please provide the name of a lawyer, who will represent you for the upcoming investment round.'''

Faraaz Samadi - Orrick.

'''How much money are you seeking to raise in the current round?'''

1-1.5M GBP.

'''Explain why you are raising finance.'''

I'm raising finance to support the growth of the company over the next 18 months where we will reach 50 contracts and unlock 1.25M GBP in revenue. The key cost categories include 65% for in-house R&D and team, 10% outsourcing, 15% sales and marketing with a 10% buffer for legal, accounting, regulatory and insurance.

'''Please explain the history of your venture.'''

As a neuroscientist, I worked at a lab that ran clinical trials for phantom limb pain patients. Despite the limited options for these patients, it was extremely difficult for them to get involved in our research - largely because the language we used was overwhelming. In 2018, I left academic research to join an early stage biotech (now post-IPO) looking to change the world of mental health and anti-depressants. As the first of two full-time scientists on the team at the time, I was heavily involved in clinical development - everything from setting up hospital rooms (the sites) for the trial to patient recruitment. In both academic and commercial research, I learned that patient recruitment had largely been unchanged over the past decades and that preventable delays incurred huge costs - cutting studies + lost knowledge in academia , and both present (~200,000GBP/month for rent, administrative staff, set up costs) + future (losing time on your patent) costs in commercial clinical development. In 2019, I started Neucruit to fundamentally change patient recruitment for clinical trials - initially leveraging the UCL Artificial Intelligence network I had built during my time at UCL. With the help of 2 ex-co-founders (now just great friends) and 20 volunteers, we bootstrapped our first model and completed initial validation with 6 research labs at UCL. After several months, I had built a really great research project but it was far from a business. Up until this point, I was largely specialised in science - I had very vague and incomplete ideas on how to build and operate a business. So I made the decision to join Imperial for a masters in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Management. Every lecture fundamentally changed the way I thought about my business - and each professor gave me invaluable insight. But more than that, it was the people I met - and that I continue to meet via Imperial - that have had the most profound impact on Neucruit. These include peers from my course, fellow founders, ex-founders, mentors, experts-in-residence and the Imperial Enterprise Lab team. I finished the course a year ago now (April 2020) and since then, Neucruit placed first at the Imperial COVID-19 recovery challenge, closed a 330,000 GBP pre-seed centred around an Innovate UK grant award (secured with direct help from the experts-in-residence programme) and brought on vetted, experienced individuals in clinical development, engineering and operations. In our 2 hospital site-based case studies, we've demonstrated an over 90% reduction in patient recruitment timelines. Each day brings us closer to a world where every patient is involved in their healthcare discoveries and where life-saving medications are developed in half the time.

'''Please explain the longer term, future vision for the Company'''

Series A Q2/3 2023 - from 50 to 500 contracts | a self-growing biotech founder network | a gig economy for patients, scientists and designers | all centred around improving clinical development / Series B 2024/5 - from 500 to 5000 contracts | scale what works / Exit 2026/7 (Optimal) IPO | Healthcare communications | Support for Biotechs / Exit 2026/7 (Realistic) CRO Acquisition | Turn current pipeline clients into investors at Series A then buyers e.g. Syneos Health.

'''Explain the core technologies and/or service propositions of your venture.'''

Core technologies: 1. A database of patient insights and conversations populated by a NLP model 2. A smart chatbot that translates clinical trials into laymen terms + breaks it down into a conversation 3. A referral/ops platform for site staff (doctors and nurses) to receive patient registration into trial and respond Service propositions: 1. Insights and analytics (general reports we can download from database, custom reports we can generate, licensing access to database) 2. Patient recruitment (patient facing material including study page, smart chatbot recruitment crawling across database, suggestion reports) 3. Site support (set up, referral/ops - SMS reminders, integration with existing tech stack) Cashflow considerations: All technologies and propositions fall under the recruitment service we provide but segmenting these into separate offerings significantly improves cashflow (an issue that is common for patient recruitment companies). Zero additional work required -> - Reports - instant cashflow - Database access - instant cashflow - Key benefits: shorter sales cycle (no vendor quality assurance required), provide instant value, mitigate risk from below services Minimal additional work required -> - Patient-facing material - on completion - within days - Site support set- up - on completion - within weeks - Smart chatbot recruitment - monthly on patients registered into trial - within months - Key benefits: high revenue opportunity, collect metadata for database, good for long term cash flow.

'''Does your commercial strategy rely on intellectual property assets?'''

Our commercial strategy centres around data and our operations facilitate the growth of our database of patient insights and clinical trial metadata.

'''What commercial progress have you made?'''

In pipeline: - Completed COVID-19 clinical trial and obesity clinical trial, over 90% in timeline reduction for both - Growing community of emerging biotechs to convert for deals ranging from 25,00 GBP, 20% increase week-on-week - Signed CDA’s with Syneos Health and Covance for deals ranging from 100,000 GBP.
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