LYVA Labs attend Bridging the Gap event for start-up to scale-up success

Hannah Randles, Pipeline Investor Manager at LYVA Labs, recently sat on a discussion panel at the Innovation Agency’s Bridging the Gap event.  

Held at The Spine, the event catered to 150 attendees from healthcare SMEs, clinical entrepreneurs, and established innovators to help innovators bridge the gap between their initial success and scale-up success.  

With various panels and roundtables across the day, the event provided information & discussions on the best ways in which innovators can gain access to support from various institutions, such as the AHSN (Academic Health Science Network), with the aim of gaining further investment and scaling up their successes.  

Hannah was part of the ‘Investment Landscape’ panel discussion along with Andy Round, Investment Director at Praetura Venture, and Ben Carter, Investment Manager of life sciences at Deepbridge Capital.  

They discussed challenges in healthcare investment such as a potential recession and the impact it would have on the industry and how businesses can navigate this perspective landscape. The panel also provided information on the best way to operate a business that will ultimately secure investment.  

Hannah said: “There are various challenges that innovators can encounter when in the latter stages of the innovation pathway, events such as Bridging the Gap allows them to discuss these issues with fellow businesses. It also enables those within the industry such as investment managers to provide tools and knowledge on how businesses steer such challenges.” 

Other speakers included Dr Phil Jennings, CEO of Innovation Agency, Jordan van Flute CTO Inovus Medical and Mark Tatnarajah, Managing Director C2-Ai as well as keynotes speeches from St. John Crean, Pro Vice-Chancellor at the University of Central Lancashire, plus many more.  

The workshop session covered topics such as digital readiness, and scale adoption as well as discussion from various healthcare investment professionals on the complexities of working within the NHS and how the AHSN (Academic Health Science Network) can help support innovators within their innovation journey in the Liverpool City Region.  This also included a second keynote speech from Lindsey Hughes, Director of Research and Engagement in the Innovation, Research and Life Sciences Group and Accelerated Access Collaborative – NHS England.  

Hannah continued: “Bridging the Gap was a great event that allowed SMEs and Innovators to be aware of the support available to them. Events like this help to establish the LCR as a hotbed for innovation, whilst making innovators aware of the challenges they might face and how to overcome them.”