The Hard Part with Evan McCann

Liran Belenzon from BenchSci

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Liran Belenzon is the Co-Founder and CEO of BenchSci.


BenchSci's mission is to exponentially increase the speed and quality of life-saving R&D to improve patients' health.

They do this by applying cutting-edge AI to understand how disease biology works at scale throughout the drug discovery pipeline to solve the number one reason why drug discovery projects fail — getting the biology wrong.

ASCEND, their disease biology GenAI platform, understands the entire history of biomedical experiments to create a scalable AI assistant for preclinical organizations.


Takeaways

  • The genesis story of BenchSci.
  • Thoughts on commercialization and how to do it well.
  • How Liran has scaled with the company as a leader and founder.
  • Step changes in headcount.
  • How BenchSci navigates in-person, remote and hybrid work.
  • Liran's contrarian thoughts on raising money and how he has raised $200M+.
  • Why you should only do investor updates for investors and not potential investors.
  • How AI has changed over the last 8+ years of BenchSci's journey.
  • Building a network as an immigrant founder.
  • Scaling product offerings.
  • Working and selling into big pharma and research teams.
  • Hiring for BenchSci's unique intersection of AI and bio.


    • Chapters

    00:00 The Genesis of BenchSci

    03:12 Navigating the Drug Discovery Landscape

    05:47 Commercialization Challenges and Strategies

    08:59 Scaling as a Founder

    11:59 Remote Work Dynamics

    14:51 Mastering the Fundraising Process

    19:52 The Evolution of AI in Drug Discovery

    23:12 Understanding the Drug Discovery Process

    25:54 Building Trust with Researchers

    28:50 Overcoming Networking Challenges

    32:14 Scaling Product Offerings

    35:01 Hiring for a Unique Intersection

    36:57 Personal Reflections and Future Outlook


    Keywords

    BenchSci, drug discovery, AI, commercialization, startup, scaling, fundraising, remote work, biology, technology

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    The Hard Part with Evan McCannBy Evan McCann