2023 Funding Landscape: Finding Warmth in a Biotech Winter

Joe joined Madrona in 2022. He focuses on sourcing and evaluating new investment opportunities across Madrona’s investment themes with a focus on the intersection of life and computer sciences. He also supports the growth and strategy of current portfolio companies. Joe is a scientist at heart and is particularly interested in working with founders combining AI/ML and high-plex multi-omics to uncover unique biology.

Before joining Madrona, Joe worked in business development at Roche, focusing on accelerating DNA sequencing. Joe came to Roche through the acquisition of Stratos Genomics, where he led business development, wearing many hats to advance Stratos’s single molecule, nanopore sequencing technology. Earlier in his career, Joe worked at NanoString commercializing multi-omic technologies and was an associate at the W Fund, investing in early-stage startups in Washington.

Dr. Will Canestaro is a venture capitalist, health economist and meta-epidemiologist with a demonstrated history of working in the biotechnology industry. He manages the Foundation’s biotech and engineering VC investment portfolio. Through WRF, Dr. Canestaro has made 25 investments in 19 Washington-based companies. He teaches courses at the UW School of Business and School of Pharmacy on Health Innovation and Meta-Analytic methods, respectively. Will earned his doctorate from the University of Washington’s School of Pharmacy Pharmaceutical Outcomes Research and Policy Program and he received an M.Sc. in medical anthropology from Oxford University and an A.B. in medical sociology from Dartmouth College.