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Insights from SOSV’s Therapeutics Virtual Matchmaking Event
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Ben Joffe
Ben Joffe
July 20, 2026

Last week, 571 therapeutics founders and investors joined SOSV’s virtual matchmaking event, generating over 1,000 meetings during the week.

A few patterns stood out.

Strong alignment on disease areas

The five most common areas were the same for both investors and startups:

  1. Oncology
  2. Immunology and inflammation
  3. Neurology and CNS
  4. Aging and longevity
  5. Cardiovascular and metabolic diseases

This suggests that startup formation remains closely aligned with the disease areas attracting the greatest investor interest.

More divergence on modalities

Investors showed the strongest interest in:

  1. Biologics and antibodies
  2. RNA therapeutics
  3. AI and computational drug discovery
  4. Platform technologies and discovery engines
  5. Small molecules

The most common modalities among startups were:

  1. Platform technologies and discovery engines
  2. Small molecules
  3. Biologics and antibodies
  4. AI and computational drug discovery
  5. Drug delivery and formulation

The difference is noteworthy: RNA therapeutics ranked near the top of investor interest but represented only 12% of participating startups, while drug delivery was considerably more prevalent among startups than among investors’ stated areas of focus.

Other notable findings

52% of startups reported making significant use of AI in their product or technology.

50% had at least one woman co-founder.

57% of investors said they could lead investments.

Platform companies were particularly well represented. 42% of startups had both a technology platform and an internal therapeutic pipeline, closely matching investor appetite: 84% of investors expressed interest in this model.

The geographic reach was also broad. While 64% of startups were US-based, participating investors reported actively investing across the US, Europe, the UK, Canada, Asia-Pacific and other markets.

Overall, the data points to a therapeutics ecosystem that is increasingly platform-driven, computationally enabled and globally connected, while remaining strongly concentrated around a relatively consistent set of major disease areas.

Our next virtual matchmaking events will take place in November, focused on #DeepTech and #CoFounders.

Pre-registration is now open here.

#Therapeutics #Biotech #DrugDiscovery #VentureCapital #Startups #AI #Healthcare #LifeSciences

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