Meet our sprint designers: Natalie, Crystal, and Adam
News from the Funding Innovation Lab: September 18, 2024, Edition 13
Today, I’m excited to introduce you to our final three sprint designers for this year’s batch of experiments - Natalie Levy, Crystal Brown, and Adam Jenkins!
And… we have opened up registration for our October 30th event - please register and join us here in Cambridge! We’ll be publicly sharing the results from these two experiments and working together to brainstorm ways to activate the learnings and set the course for the experiments we run next year. Join us!
Natalie Levy
Natalie Levy is the founder of She’s Independent, a women-first investment group offering an entirely new way to support women’s financial independence and influence through investing. She’s Independent marries empowerment and action, with the ultimate mission of closing the power gap in investing by getting more women on the cap table, in the boardroom, and into positions of influence.
An accomplished engineer turned Wall Street derivatives trader, investor, and advisor, Natalie has over a decade of tech operational experience, a portfolio of 40+ seed through later stage private investments, and has experienced liquidity events averaging a >20x return.
She resides in Boulder, CO with her loving rescue pup Beans and is passionate about gender equity and mental health awareness.
Natalie shared her thoughts on the work of the Funding Innovation Lab:
Natalie, why is the work of creating more funding access and opportunity important to you?
Funding access and money flows drive products, services, and influence. Money drives healthcare studies, knowledge, and more. Funders additionally influence companies in terms of direction and strategy. We lack representation across so many layers of professional influence today - it's time to change that.
Now that you have participated in helping to design an experiment for the Funding Innovation Lab, can you speak to why you chose to get involved with this work and/or what you find exciting about this approach?
I deeply care about removing bias from systems and processes that have driven inequities and appreciate the sprint, data-driven approach to improving how we think, operate, and improve upon the status quo. Shorter experiment windows that focus on testing one variable allow for learning in close to real-time. We additionally couldn't be more aligned from a mission-driven standpoint in terms of what we do and how we show up. The topics are truly impactful as well, addressing issues like inclusion and how to improve an individual's experience and outcome from attending a networking event where they feel like an outsider.
Crystal Brown
As the CEO and co-founder of CircNova, Inc., Crystal Brown leads an early stage biotechnology company that leverages their unique AI NovaEngine™ to identify, generate, and design circular RNA for therapeutic development. With over 20 years of experience in operations, program management, and leadership roles in various industries, she has the skills and vision to drive innovation and growth in the biotech sector.
Crystal shared her thoughts on the work of the Funding Innovation Lab:
Crystal, why is the work of creating more funding access and opportunity important to you?
As an underrepresented founder, I know first hand how challenging it can be to gain access to funding and other resources. It can be discouraging in the startup environment, as we are already overcoming many hurdles to launch and scale new companies. Identifying and seizing opportunities to create better access and intentional support is work that is meaningful and personal. I’m always in to do my part to help the next founder!
Now that you have participated in helping to design an experiment for the FIL, can you speak to why you chose to get involved with this work and/or what you find exciting about this approach?
What I find most exciting about the work being done for the FIL is the action being taken upfront to address the challenges so many of us face when sourcing funding and support. The Funding Innovation Lab isn’t just talking about what the problem is, the lab is designed to design solutions that can implemented quickly and effectively. It’s the type of work needed and that I am proud to be a part of.
Adam Jenkins
Adam Jenkins is the regional site director for BioLabs where he oversees three sites in the Greater Boston region. Prior to BioLabs, he oversaw portfolio corporate strategy at Biogen and headed their machine learning teams in the commercial and medical space. Holding a PhD in genetics and an MBA in finance, Adam has extensive experience advising start-ups, large pharma, and financial institutions on strategy and execution.
Adam shared his thoughts on the work of the Funding Innovation Lab:
Adam, why is the work of creating more funding access and opportunity important to you?
I have always thought that good ideas come from anywhere and from anyone, regardless of the university or the background of the individual. Often, it’s those who have a unique perspective that end up having the best ideas, but at the same time it’s those who often have the most difficulty garnering funding. To get the best ideas, we have to make sure we allocate capital to those individuals that deserve, not just those who came from universities with the most recognizable name.
Now that you have participated in helping to design an experiment for the FIL, can you speak to why you chose to get involved with this work and/or what you find exciting about this approach?
There is not a lot of working being done in the space in general, so the thought of being able to impact future funding access was an exciting one. As an industry we hear often how we have to be more diverse with our funding and inclusiveness, but rarely do we see any actionable items. We work in an industry where people focus on numbers and response variables, so what better way to show that how we present companies impacts interest based off that exact same approach.
Funding Innovation Lab Launch Party
October 30th, 12:30-5pm
LabCentral, 700 Main Street, Cambridge MA 02139
We’ll be sharing the results of these first two experiments and discussing ways you can activate the learnings & recommendations in your own work. We’ll also be working together to brainstorm future experiments.
If you are passionate about seeing more funding access and opportunity for women and people of color in the life sciences, please join us!
2024 Sprint Progress Update
The Funding Innovation Lab is live and actively working on experiments now! We will be keeping you updated on our progress with this weekly Progress Update section.
Phase 1: Design the Sprints for 2024 (July-August)
July 25: We announced the focus areas for this year’s two sprints at our Kickoff event
August 6: We finalized the sprint design teams and scheduled the meetings where these teams will determine what/how/when we will run these experiments
August 21: One experiment is fully designed and in motion. The second is partially designed, with some logistics around how it will get executed still to be determined.
Phase 2: Facilitate the Sprints (September)
We are deep in the work of facilitating the two experiments currently! No details to be shared while we are in process, of course.
Phase 3: Open source the Sprint Results (October)
Save the date for our Summit and Results Reveal Party!
October 30th in Cambridge MA 9am-12pm - save the date!
The Funding Innovation Lab is a non-profit program, founded by LabCentral and led by Beth McKeon, with a mission to increase funding inclusion, access, and opportunity for women and BIPOC founders in the life sciences.
The Funding Innovation Lab convenes and supports innovators from across VC, universities, and entrepreneurial support organizations as they run rapid design sprints to solve the persistent systemic barriers and bias in the fundraising and capital deployment process. The Funding Innovation Lab has an open-source policy, sharing the wins and fails from these experiments here on Substack and with its community of practitioners with the goal to see widespread adoption and replication of emerging best practices in this field.