Hot topic: How to prepare for spring conference season 2025
‘Fail to prepare, prepare to fail’ – an old adage that couldn’t be truer when it comes to maximising your valuable time and resources when attending conferences.
Ahead of spring conference season, here are Optimum’s top tips on how you can ensure you’re (a) attending the right events and (b) utilising the opportunities you hope for, when luck has you standing beside a top investor you’ve been targeting for months!
📝 Do your homework!
Research the investor’s experience and sweet spots: this includes understanding what they can invest in and whether they have dry powder left, etc. Targeting a limited number of the right people will be more effective than a scattergun approach of trying to talk to lots of investors, many of whom might have no interest in your area.
🗣️ Telling your story has never been more important
In networking environments, you need to keep your pitch tight, so you can tell it in a few minutes. Time spent drafting and practising how you describe your business or project is ALWAYS time well spent. The story is critical to perceptions of your company and how you express that story has a central role to play in your likely success or failure.
In our recent European Healthcare Investor Survey investors stressed the importance of strong communications, a good investor deck, and a clear expression of differentiation and strategy for achieving key inflection points, as being among the most important ‘must haves’ from companies.
🧪 Deals lie in the data
Investors believe that if an idea is good, it will get backed. Having data to back up your story is more vital than ever for investors when they are looking to invest. Prepare a top line explanation of your clinical pipeline and communicate where an investor can fit in with the journey.
Our 2025 European Investor Survey found that 81% of investors are looking for companies to show a clear clinical and commercial pathway, with 52% of investors focused on investment in new assets.
🤝 Build lasting relationships
Building and fostering long term relationships with investors is crucial. Understanding an individual’s criteria, such as therapeutic areas of interest and status of fund cycles is important to avoid pestering. Investor bugbears include repeated cold calls and lack of transparency.
This spring conference season is an ideal opportunity to check in with investors and ensure you stay on their radar. Nurturing industry relationships can mean a ‘no’ today doesn’t necessarily mean a ‘no’ tomorrow.
📆 Key dates for your diary
- 17-19th March is BIO-EUROPE Spring in Milan, Italy
- 2-3rd April is Anglonordic in London, UK
- 29-30th April is LSX World Congress in London, UK
- 12-14th May is Bio€quity in Bruges, Belgium
Learn more about these great events here.
The Optimum team will be in attendance at all of spring conference season, so please do reach out if you would like to connect with us there!
