But inside the Meliá hotel, in a full room, the meeting “The biotech revolution in venture capital” was held, carried out by the Argentine association of private, entrepreneurial and seed capital (Arcap), which promotes private capital investment . The topic was the potential of biotechnology in Argentina, and the venture capital tool to unify the private sector with the scientific one. They estimate that it is from this sector that the next Argentine unicorns will emerge.
“On this day we are all looking at Twitter, seeing the situation. I suggest we stop for a bit. For venture capital and science, you have to think in the long term”, assured Matías Peire, Vice President of Arcap, at the beginning of his speech. According to Peire, biotechnology could attract investments of more than US$1.5 billion in the next decade. As an example, he mentioned that in the United States $40bn has been invested in projects in the last decade, with more than half in 2021 alone.
“These days of the situation make us think about the day to day, but this is the best bet that Argentina can have for the long term, we have what it takes,” added Peire, who is also the founder of Gridx, one of the business accelerators largest technology-based companies in the region. He estimated that 300 companies could be created in the next decade, of which more than half could be “competitive in the world.” There are currently about 200 biotech companies.
Regarding jobs, Peire did not give an estimate, but assured that it could be a job opportunity for thousands of scientists, outside the public research system. There are more than 50 thousand researchers, of which 64% are related to natural sciences. This critical mass of a consolidated public educational and scientific system is one of the great advantages highlighted by investors, as an “example of the region”. Another advantage is the “low costs”, which are one fifth of those in developed countries, according to Matías Bazan of Deloitte. Finally, it was highlighted that biotechnology can be applied in various areas, from agriculture and food, to energy and chemicals. In fact, 60% of the world’s inputs could be developed with biotechnology.
In one of the panels of the meeting, one of the most repeated questions to the exhibitors of investment funds who anticipated their next investments was why invest in Argentina, and in this context of maximum uncertainty. “Opportunities now are going to be more expensive tomorrow. For this week that we have to live, investing in global companies is getting out of the logic of the ups and downs of the economy, all companies look at today, but the problems are the same as before, because the companies are global, they propose solutions on food , diseases or climate change, for everyone”, said Daniel Scacchi, director of innovation at Acceleradora Litoral.
For his part, Adrián Rubstein from Cites added: “The eyes of the world look at biotechnology, 15 years ago investors looked at a bond, but in 2021, $30 billion globally was injected into this sector”. Meanwhile, Juan Soria, from the SF500P fund, defended the creation of startups to advance in new companies: “In Argentina we do good science, but we are not so good at transforming that into innovation and creating companies, we have to transform that and appropriate the value here ”. In funds like Gridx, they invested US$10 billion in 42 startups, of which 20 are already raising capital abroad. 500 people work, and they seek to create 70 more.
Source: Ambito
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