Exit – Your Baby Must eventually Leave the Nest
By Anders Månsson, Senior Advisor at Ventures Accelerated
April 23, 2026
From Ideation to Exit: The Biotech Lifecycle as a Living System
Founding a biotech company and raising a child might seem worlds apart — one might be born from spreadsheets and sequencing data, the other from biology of a more traditional kind. Both require love, and a steady hand… They both start with a spark of life that must be nurtured; both might involve sleepless nights and sudden growth spurts, and both eventually demand that you let them go — whether into the market or into adulthood.
The founding moment of a biotech startup is a lot like the moment a couple decides that it is time to have a child: excitement overwhelms realism. You imagine the breakthrough discovery that will cure diseases or revolutionize diagnostics, just as parents imagine raising a Nobel Prize–winning prodigy who loves eating his/her veggies. Reality, of course, has its own timeline, and for some, like me, brusselsprouts will never be that appealing.
The early days of a startup are all fragile beginnings. There’s conception — an idea scribbled on a napkin that you’re sure will change the future, followed by early tests of viability. The founders, much like expectant parents, talk in hushed tones about “the potential” and recoil when asked practical questions like, “Do you have funding?” Either way, there’s never enough.
Once your biotech baby is up and crawling — maybe you’ve secured seed funding, hired your first few employees, and have an actual lab space, you quickly realize that things develop faster than you can keep up. There’s always something leaking, breaking, or running out. The company, like a toddler, doesn’t yet know what’s dangerous and what isn’t. It’s attracted to shiny scientific risks and tries to “do everything” at once. Every small success is met with disproportionate celebration, your first reproducible experiment, your first small grant. Just as a child’s first steps or words, these events send parents reaching for the camera.
—> Investors and advisory boards fill the role of well-meaning extended family members. They fuss over your company’s milestones, offer contradictory advice, and occasionally question your parenting choices. Some even think they could do a better job raising the business themselves. You smile politely (while screaming internally).
Scaling, Dilution & Letting Go: When the System Gains Autonomy
Then comes adolescence — that turbulent stage when your biotech company is too big to be cute but too unformed to be independent. This might be clinical trial territory: expensive, emotional, and full of existential doubt. Suddenly your creation begins questioning its mission. Is it really about curing cancer, or has it “sold out” to pursue the faster regulatory path?
You hire more staff, bringing in executives with different visions and backgrounds. The founders, like bewildered parents confronting teenage rebellion, realize that they must loosen their grip and trust other people to make decisions. The very thing you created now demands independence. It doesn’t always speak your language anymore. Acronyms multiply, budgets balloon, and you sometimes wonder if you’ve completely lost control.
—> A biotech exit — whether IPO, acquisition, or sustainable profitability — is the entrepreneurial equivalent of sending your grown child into the real world. You’ve guided it through uncertain beginnings, stable growth, and moments of crisis. Now others will take responsibility — investors, new executives, and the unforgiving market. You feel a mix of pride and melancholy: this thing that once lived entirely in your lab notebook now exists on its own terms. There is also unmasked fear…
When a company goes public, the founders might experience something like dropping a child off at university: a rush of pride, relief, and a faint worry that the world won’t understand them. The structure becomes mature, but the founder’s role becomes more symbolic. You still care deeply but must accept that the market, like adulthood, will be both merciless and formative.
Uncertainty, Resilience & Narrative: The Long-Term Experiment
Importantly, raising a child and building a biotech startup are both acts of faith in the future. You invest staggering effort, time, and money into something fundamentally uncertain. You love it despite its flaws, because you have seen it grow from a cluster of cells — literal or metaphorical — into an entity with its own character. Most days are grueling and unglamorous: endless experiments, regulatory paperwork, or negotiations that test your patience.
• But then come those magic days when the data works, the product ships, or the kid surprises you with wisdom beyond their years.
• Those are the moments that make the journey worth it.
Both processes teach humility. No matter how much you think you control the outcome, biology — whether human or corporate — has its own will. Growth rarely follows your Gantt charts or parenting manuals. It takes resilience to guide something living through the unpredictable; it also takes a large portion of humor to stay sane while doing it.
In the end, the comparison between biotech entrepreneurship and parenting isn’t just a metaphor. It is a reminder that both endeavors blend science and storytelling. Founders and parents alike become mythmakers, narrating every step to keep hope alive. They celebrate progress, mourn failures, and continue believing that with enough love, patience, and calibration, their creation will one day thrive on its own. And if you’re lucky, in both cases, you get to watch your creation walk confidently into the world, knowing that in every cell of its body, it carries a small part of you.