Although it functions independently, The BioExpert Network (BEN) forms a part of Capital Cell, the largest crowdfunding platform in Europe dedicated exclusively to health, medicine and biotechnology.

The BEN evaluation process is the first step for companies that approach Capital Cell to raise funds. Only proposals that receive a positive evaluation from the BEN are eligible for crowdfunding on Capital Cell’s platform.

The BioExpert Network is reserved for people with an adequate profile, so we vet every new member. We require our experts to have a medical degree, a PhD or a minimum of 6 years of industry experience in medicine, healthcare, biotechnology or other related fields.

If you are a healthcare professional with extensive experience in your field you probably qualify to be a BioExpert. Our members include:

• PhD level scientists
• Physicians and other healthcare professionals
• Experienced biotech entrepreneurs
• Specialist investors
• Consultants or service providers with relevant experience
• IP lawyers & market access experts
• Innovation advisors & tech transfer officers

The projects that come to the BioExpert Network from Capital Cell’s are 100% biotech related. From Drug Discovery to Medical Devices, from Oncology to Neurology, you’ll be able to explore and review any of the promising projects listed on the website.

The process is really simple:

1. Select a project from the Review Companies page
2. Read the project summary and pitch deck (around 15-25 slides)
3. Give us your feedback by grading a few key features (team, science, innovation & business potential)

Currently there is no upper or lower limit to the number of reviews you can do. However, we do encourage our experts to only review projects in which they have specific expertise.

All we really want is your informed and honest opinion expressed in a natural and informal way. However, we do ask you to keep the following general guidelines in mind:

• Be conservative with very high or low scores. There are few projects that deserve a 10, especially not in all areas!
• Although you may skip a comment in one section if you feel you have already covered this area or it is not your field of expertise, we ask you to provide detailed, project specific comments to justify your scores. This is where the true value of the evaluation lies.
• Take the developmental stage of the project into account, and grade the quality of the results according to the stage they are in. A pre-clinical stage project by definition will not have clinical results, and should not be penalised for that.
• Please ensure that there is coherence between your scores and comments. A comment like “This project has incredible potential” is inconsistent with a score of 4 or 5, while pointing out several weaknesses in the proposal is inconsistent with a score of 9 or 10.
• The review process is dynamic. If the company replies to your comments, please take the replies into account and consider adjusting your scores and comments, where appropriate.
• Make sure you use your own words, rather than paraphrasing the pitch deck or the newsletters we send out.
• Feel free to use AI to do background research, but please do not use AI to write your comments. We understand that many experts are not native English speakers, and we don’t care about grammar or spelling, but we do want a review that’s 100% you.

The review process is independent and we try to intervene as little as possible. However, we do monitor reviews for quality and potential conflicts of interest, and may flag reviews in the following cases:

• Consistently very high or very low scores (straight 10s or 1s)
• Invalid comments like “NA”, “No comment” or “No” in more than one section
• Incoherence between the scores and comments (e.g. an extremely high score combined with negative comments)
• Comments that clearly indicate that the expert has not read the pitch deck properly

In general, if a review is flagged, we will write to the expert in question and ask them to edit their evaluation with our guidelines in mind. However, we reserve the right to remove a review if the expert does not respond to our request, and in the following cases:

• If the review is biased, offensive, or contains inaccurate facts
• If further investigation reveals a potential conflict of interest
• If we suspect that the review has been generated using AI or copied from another source

During the review process, only the project owner, other experts who have reviewed the proposal and site administrators can see the submitted reviews. Once you have submitted a review, will you be able to see the comments of the other reviewers, and they will be able to see yours.

When the review process has ended, the company receives a report with the results of the expert analysis, including all the individual reviews. A copy is also shared with the experts who reviewed the proposal.

If a project successfully reaches the campaign phase with Capital Cell, the BioExpert Network scores and selected comments from the experts are featured on the campaign page and are visible to registered investors. However, we only use comments from experts that have given their explicit permission to do so.

Yes, you can. In fact, we encourage it! We would like the review process to be as dynamic and interactive as possible.

You can include doubts and questions in your comments, and the project owner has the opportunity to reply. If you feel they have addressed your concerns adequately, we encourage you to take this feedback into account and adjust your scores and comments accordingly.

Once the two-week review process has ended, we analyse the results and prepare the final report. The project and the BioExpert Network report are then discussed by Capital Cell’s investment committee, which decides which projects continue to a funding campaign with Capital Cell.

Although we do take other factors into account, the results of the BioExpert Network analysis play an important role in our decision-making process. Your reviews are therefore decisive in determining whether a project will get funded or not.

Just visit the Receive Expert Feedback page and fill out the registration form. We will get back to you as soon as possible with feedback and further instructions.

When you register your proposal, it is saved as a draft and the BioExpert Network coordinator receives a notification that a new project has been submitted.

The first thing we do is review the information submitted and make sure it is complete. We also review your pitch deck and make suggestions, if we think that important information is missing.

Note that the project is not published on the platform until all necessary changes have been made and you give your permission to publish, so you can register without concerns.

Once the project is published, we inform the experts via our private LinkedIn group that a new project is available for review, and include the project in our weekly newsletter to the network.

Only registered BioExpert members can see the projects under review and access your pitch deck. However, any member of the network can potentially review your proposal.

The experts evaluate the following aspects of your proposal, so make sure to include detailed information on each area:

• The Team
• The Science
• The Innovation
• The Business Potential

As a general guideline we recommend that the pitch deck contain 15-25 slides. For more information, including a handy pitch deck checklist, download our BioExpert Network Onboarding Guide.

Although we do state clearly on each company’s page that the pitch deck is confidential and should not be shared or copied, the experts do not sign an NDA. Your pitch deck should therefore contain only non-confidential, publicly available information.

We do understand that this is a balancing act between including enough information to convince the reader, and not revealing confidential information, but bear in mind that you are ultimately here to crowdfund, and you will need to reveal considerably more information on your campaign page, if and when you reach that stage!

The review process generally takes around two weeks, but we aim for a minimum of 14-15 reviews, so we may extend the review period if we do not have enough reviews by the end of the initial deadline.

During the review process, we recommend that you read and reply to the experts’ comments, where appropriate, as they have the option of changing their scores and comments based on your feedback. To make this easier for you, you will receive an email every time a new review comes in.

You can also update the pitch deck at any time during the review process, if you notice a pattern in the feedback of the experts that indicates information is missing or unclear in the pitch deck. To do so, just login to your BioExpert Network account and return to the project registration page.

Once the review process is completed, we do a final review quality check and follow up on any potential issues. We then prepare the final report and discuss the project at our next Investment Committee meeting, where we decide whether or not to move forward with a funding campaign on the Capital Cell platform.

As soon as we have made a decision we will inform you via email and send you the final report. If we decide to move forward with your project, we will put you in touch with an Investment Director to discuss the financial aspects of the proposal and a possible campaign.

If you are looking for a paid consultancy gig, this may not be for you. Our mission is to boost the biotech start-up ecosystem, so we reward our experts with investment credits that can be used to participate indirectly in start-ups raising funds through Capital Cell.

For each project you review, you will earn an investment credit with a maximum initial value of €50. Once you have accumulated enough credits (you need a minimum of €500, or 10 reviews), you will be able to use them to investment in companies that are fundraising with Capital Cell through our BioExpert Network Investment Credits Plan.

Reviewing projects:

You get one investment credit every time you review a project.

Growing the network:

You get one investment credit every time you invite an expert from your own network to join the BioExpert Network using our Invite an Expert feature (visit your BioExpert Network profile to access this option). You will receive the credit when your invited expert reviews a project for the first time.

The initial credit value is dependent on Capital Cell’s turnover for that quarter, with a maximum value of 50€. However, the credit value has been fixed at the maximum value of 50€ for a number of years now.

Once you have invested you credits in a specific company, the value of these credits increases proportionally to the share price. For example, if the share price increases by 20x, each credit you invested in that company will have a final value of €50 x 20 = €1000.

Note that, just like in a normal investment, if the company is not successful, you credit value could also end up being zero. The good news is, the more companies you invest your credits in, the greater your chances of significant returns.

Although the investment credit system runs in parallel to the direct investments made on the Capital Cell website, the conditions are the same.

This means you can only invest in the companies that are active on the Capital Cell platform at the time you invest. Any discounts that apply to Capital Cell investors, also apply to BioExperts, as do campaign deadlines.

You may notice that your credits do not immediately become active. Credits are activated at the beginning of each quarter. For example, if you have done 10 reviews in Q1, these credits will become available at the start of Q2.

To use your credits, you should:

1. Browse the ongoing campaigns at Capital Cell
2. Choose a company you want to invest in
3. Fill out this form indicating the company and the number of credits you want to invest (minimum of €500)
4. Sign an agreement with Capital Cell when the public campaign ends
5. Wait for an exit event of the company and bill us for your percentage of the profits

For more information, consult the Investment credits page

The Investment Credit Agreement between you and Capital Cell will be signed when the company’s public campaign on Capital Cell’s platform ends. You can check the campaign closing dates here.

Once the public campaign has closed, we will send you the agreement to sign and update your credit status on your BioExpert Network profile.

Bear in mind that closing a campaign involves a lot of paperwork, so this may take up to a month or more.

Investment credits can only to invest in companies currently doing a funding campaign on Capital Cell through our our Investment Credits Plan and do not expire.