James Wong
Assessor at Innovate UK
London, England
Overview
Work Experience
Ventures Senior Portfolio Manager
2024 - Current
Foresight Group is an award-winning, leading listed infrastructure, private equity and venture capital investment manager. Lead the portfolio management of 12 venture-backed life sciences and medical technologies companies across stages of product development and commercial growth with support from Foresight alongside UK and international investors. Collaborate with Investment and Non-Investment Team colleagues at Foresight to achieve Ventures objectives as well as portfolio company board members and management teams to achieve strategic, financial and hiring objectives. Portfolio companies include spinouts, startups and scaleups across biotech, life sciences tools, healthtech and medtech.
Expert Mentor - HyperGrowth Global
2024
Global HyperGrowth is a global commercialisation programme to help scale late-stage startups internationally. Startup Genome is the world-leading innovation ecosystem development organisation, working with more than 170 economic and innovation ministries and agencies in over 60 countries. Invited to attend the 2024 SusHi (Sustainable High Tech) Conference (Tokyo, Japan) as part of the Startup Genome Global HyperGrowth Tokyo programme. Attended Investor Day - based on the successful Slush format - along with other international investors as well as local investors ranging from VCs, corporate VCs, family offices and LPs. Served as an international investor panel judge for a local startup pitching competition, an international investor panel discussion and Q&A speaker with local startup founders, and 1:1 sessions with local and international startup founders.
M5Invest Partners is a venture capital firm that funds companies in the healthcare sector.
Member - Advisory Group
2022
Serve as a Member of the Advisory Group for the BioIndustry Association (BIA) TechBio UK conference, providing input and feedback on conference content and programming, and as a Mentor on the TechBio Boost initiative. Investor panel chair and moderator at the inaugural TechBio UK conference in 2022 (London, UK).
Fellow
2020
The RSA has been at the forefront of significant social impact since 1754, driven by a global fellowship network with shared values of being open, optimistic, courageous, rigorous and enabling. We’re committed to a world that is resilient, rebalanced and regenerative, where everyone can fulfil their potential.
Expert-in-Residence (XiR)
2022
Serve as an Expert-in-Residence (XiR) for Imperial College London, leading highly rated, in-demand 1:1 sessions advising medical, science, engineering and design student and researcher founders and founding teams preparing for entrepreneurship, company creation and investment. A focus on life sciences and deeptech ventures as well as those at the intersection with sustainability and consumer. Delivered by Imperial's Enterprise Division, Imperial Enterprise Lab is a dedicated support service for students, staff and alumni who want to develop their entrepreneurial mindset, skills, and networks. More than 60 sessions led with 50 ventures, organised by the highly ranked team at Imperial Enterprise Lab.
Independent Assessor
2018
Serve as an independent assessor of innovation grant and loan funding applications. Assess merits and risks of applications to determine suitability for public funding, providing feedback on technology, IP, clinical, regulatory, commercial and investment aspects across healthcare and life sciences sub-sectors. Innovate UK is part of UK Research and Innovation, the national funding agency investing in science and research in the UK.
Venture Partner
2022 - 2024
Served as Venture Partner for MedTech SuperConnector, an accelerator programme led by Imperial College London with a vision to support early career academic researchers in the development and translation of medical technology innovations through translational grants and industry networks. Engaged founders, investors and corporates, raising awareness of the accelerator’s key role in fostering medical technology innovation and entrepreneurship as part of the UK ecosystem. Developed a future strategy and sustainable operating model for the accelerator, leveraging the entrepreneurial programme’s 5-year track record supporting 80 entrepreneurial medical, science, engineering and design founders and attracting c£20m in translational grant funding and venture capital, leading to an early-stage equity-based fund concept recommendation to the Programme and Executive Team at Imperial. Imperial has since supported select ventures that have participated in MedTech SuperConnector, launched AI SuperConnector, and announced the creation of Science Capital Imperial, a new venture capital fund manager to provide Imperial’s entrepreneurs with access to capital and proof-of-concept funding.
Mentor
2018 - 2024
Served as a mentor for MedTech SuperConnector, an accelerator programme led by Imperial College London and funded by Research England. Contributed to multiple Venture Review Sessions by providing feedback and guidance through a venture capital investor’s perspective to benefit participating founders with medical, science, engineering and design backgrounds across multiple cohorts translating medical innovations. Mentored an award-winning venture from Imperial College London which went on to partner with GE Healthcare, receive a €612,000 award from the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT Health), named MedCity (London & Partners) 'Company of the Month', won a £500,000 Innovate UK grant, and the Mayor of London’s Entrepreneur Health Award.
Board Member
2020 - 2021
Served as Board Director of SpyBiotech (Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA), a transatlantic clinical stage company applying protein engineering in a vaccine technology platform to design, develop and clinically translate new vaccines with multiple delivery systems against infectious disease and cancer. The company’s name originates from its patented protein superglue SpyTag/SpyCatcher, invented by co-founder Professor Mark Howarth, winner of the Royal Society of Chemistry Norman Heatley Award in 2017.
Investment Principal
2020 - 2021
Investment Principal - Life Sciences (Interim) at Oxford Science Enterprises (formerly Oxford Sciences Innovation), the independent venture capital investment manager investing in Life Sciences, HealthTech and Deeptech spinouts, startups and scaleups in the emerging science and technology ecosystem of Oxford. Investment deal and board experience included Oxford Nanoimaging, SpyBiotech, Genomics plc and Evox Therapeutics, collaborating with the CEO, CFO, Investment and Non-Investment Team colleagues at OSE as well as portfolio company board members and management teams to achieve strategic, financial and hiring objectives, with each portfolio company attracting sector specialist VC investors, partners and talent. Co-investors included ARCH Venture Partners, Braavos, Casdin Capital, Future Fund, GV, Foresite Capital, F-Prime Capital, Invus and OrbiMed. Mentored the founding team and CEO of CyanoCapture, an industrial bio-decarbonisation venture as part of the Oxford University Biotech Society and its Entrepreneurship Competition, advising on term sheet negotiations to secure angel investment from a ClimateTech VC, before winning the $5m XPRIZE Carbon Removal Student Award. The company’s carbon capture technology leverages engineering biology and has attracted further investment including from KOMPAS VC. The $100m XPRIZE for Carbon Removal Award Programme is supported by Elon Musk and the Musk Foundation. A member of OSE’s Diversity and Inclusion working group, advancing dialogue within the firm and portfolio companies and measuring performance compared to industry benchmarks. Mentored University of Oxford students from underrepresented backgrounds participating in the inaugural Oxford Foundry Entrepreneurial Fellowship Initiative.
Board Member
2020 - 2021
Served as Board Director of Oxford Nanoimaging (Oxford, UK and San Diego, CA), a transatlantic life sciences tools company that has developed and is commercialising a suite of products (super resolution microscopy instrument, application-specific sample preparation consumables, cloud-based analysis) to make single-molecule imaging accessible across life sciences applications in academic and industrial research.