Storyteller promoting growth:
In 2015, Jonas Söderström co-founded BioStock, a digital news and analytics service focusing exclusively on life science in the Nordics. Six years and one pandemic later, he's the CEO of a fast-growing company with HQ and tv-studio at The Spark, Medicon Village.
– Initially, we feared that the pandemic would slow our growth. Instead, we've kept growing organically, adding more clients and strengthening our team continuously. We’ve also had increasing interest in our output from investors, partly thanks to the pandemic underlining the importance of life science and the innovations this industry provides.
The majority of BioStock's 15 employees are based in Lund, but recruitments are in place for a new Stockholm office and there are plans to expand internationally as well. However, the local presence at Medicon Village has been a key success factor, according to Jonas Söderström.
– BioStock has quickly become a natural part of the powerful life science eco system here. Lund has a vibrant culture of innovation and lots of competent talent, so recruiting brilliant people has never been an issue for us.
By providing editorial coverage to companies within biotech, pharma, medtech/devices and diagnostics, BioStock bridges the communication gap between innovation and capital. Each client has an "equity story" and explaining the background, purpose and development of a company and its reasons for raising money to investors is a game changer, if done properly.
– In this industry, companies always face a risk of their communication being too technical and complex. As an innovator within the field of life science, to be successful you must dare to be emotional and passionate about what you do and why. You also need to be transparent and keep investors informed about the progress you make – and the challenges you face. This is especially true in times when the stock market is turbulent and raising capital is more difficult. If you communicate well and build trust you will always have an edge. Our aim is to help companies do that.
Going forward, Jonas Söderström and his BioStock crew aim for further growth. One way of achieving this is to expand the focus to companies in an earlier stage in need of seed capital, in both Sweden and neighbouring countries. Hence, co-operation with incubators is a top priority. Another way is to expand the range of services and to “level up” in terms of competitiveness, according to Jonas Söderström.
– Currently we are exploring a number of digital tools to increase our reach further, and to analyze and boost traffic from relevant target groups to our clients’ content.
More on Jonas Söderström: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonas-s%C3%B6derstr%C3%B6m-biostock/
More on BioStock: https://www.biostock.se/en/