BioInnovation Institute Fonden
BII
The BioInnovation Institute Foundation (BII) is an international enterprise foundation with a non-profit objective.
ID: 144327196853-71
Lobbying Activity
Response to European Innovation Act
3 Oct 2025
Increasing the number of deep-tech (AI, quantum, life science, bioeconomy, etc.) startups is crucial to the competitiveness of Europe. Most of these start-ups originate from scientific, mostly academic, research. There are two ways to increase numbers: a) Incentivize more researchers to become entrepreneurial and b) Provide a structured, safe conduit to start-up a spin-off company. This feedback relates to the second point in light of our experience at the BioInnovation Institute (BII), a non-profit foundation established by and now independent from the Novo Nordisk Foundation in Denmark in late 2018. BII has supported 131 life science/bioeconomy startups (now expanding to quantum) investing 133 mEUR through a structured 1-year acceleration in which a business developer and a psychologist/coach guide the founders (51% of whom are first-time entrepreneurs) towards their first VC round. This led BII founders to raise 899 mEUR in external financing from 2019 to 25Q2. The BII experience demonstrates that increasing numbers is possible if a) capital, b) a university-agnostic nation-wide platform (in one word, scale), and c) a competent organization is present in the Member State. Reminiscent of BII origin - through a >500mEUR grant - we recommend that the EC provides substantial funding to set-up similarly organized platform either nation-wide or EU-wide, given that traditional university-linked tech transfer fund struggle to raise capital from the private markets since LPs view these vehicles as a) too risky compared to other VC funds and b) lacking alignment of interest since GPs in university funds are typically not physical persons.
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