Incubator Spaces

Have you ever heard of an incubator space for biotechnology companies or similarly a "parent-child" design for big pharma and VCs?

For example, Flagship Pioneering conceives, creates, resources, develops first-in-category life sciences companies to transform human health and sustainability. Flagship Pioneering, a life sciences venture capital firm, uses this structure to manage its investments.

A Parent-Child design in venture capital refers to a structure where a parent company (VC firm) invests in a subsidiary company (child company), which in turn invests in startups or other companies. This structure allows the parent company to manage its portfolio of investments and maintain control over the subsidiary, while allowing the subsidiary to operate with more flexibility and independence.

The parent company, Flagship Pioneering, invests in early-stage startups and spin-off companies in the life sciences field. The child companies are then created to manage and develop these startups. This allows Flagship Pioneering to have a more hands-on approach with its portfolio companies, while also providing the ventures with the resources and support they need to succeed.

A few companies with similar setups include:
- Johnson & Johnson with MBC BioLabs & StartX.
- Twist Bioscience (1st spinout Revelar Biotherapeutics)
- Merck with StartX. & Merck KGaA, Darmstadt, Germany
- Bayer with Bayer CoLaborator, AgStart

Newer groups starting-out in this market:
- BioLabs at The Lundquist Institute
- LifeSpace Labs
- BaseLaunch
- BiotechTown
and many more...

There are many ways to design these pipeline of ideas that develop into start-ups. I personally have worked at three (technically) which were extremely different.

What is your take?
Would you like to start your company/work in an incubator space supplied by big pharma (J&J) , a full parent-child design (flagship, twist), or a completely separate space?