This Serial Entrepreneur Sold His Healthtech Company For $350M, Bringing 6x Returns To Stakeholders in 4 Years

Few stories in the world of entrepreneurship depict the perfect blend of grit, vision, and serendipity like Shawn Marcell’s. A seasoned entrepreneur with a knack for founding, scaling, and exiting multiple ventures, his story offers a wealth of lessons.

In this interview, Shawn talks about navigating the complex landscape of building successful companies, starting with a personal incident that sparked a simple idea, leading to groundbreaking innovation. His path is about determination, strategy, and seizing the right opportunities.

Shawn exited ReadCoor for an incredible $350M, and his latest ventures are Bifrost Biosystems, Torus Biosystems, and SemPresto.

Listen to the full podcast episode and review the transcript here.

From Debate Scholarships to Pharmaceuticals

Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Shawn’s early life set the stage for his career in a perhaps unexpected way. Thanks to a scholarship he earned through debate, he was drawn to economics and political science during his time at George Washington University.

His debating skill would later play a pivotal role in Shawn’s ability to pitch to investors and attract top talent. Despite initially planning to attend law school; he took a different path when he received an exciting job offer from Abbott Laboratories, a Fortune 100 pharmaceutical company.

This marked the beginning of Shawn’s decade-long career in marketing. Though far from where he would eventually make his mark in biotech and diagnostics, Shawn’s early marketing experience honed his ability to sell ideas.

This skill proved invaluable as Shawn transitioned into the startup world. As he puts it, “Everything is marketing… When you’re out pitching a company to raise money, hiring the management team to start a company, or attracting stakeholders to a startup, you’re marketing.”

The First Big Exit: Lessons in Acquisitions and Stock Options

After Abbott, Shawn joined Centocor, which introduced him to acquisitions. Centocor was eventually acquired by Johnson & Johnson–a pivotal moment in Shawn’s career. As the 119th employee, Shawn experienced the financial benefits of stock options for the first time.

“It was my first big exit,” Shawn reflects, noting that this experience gave Shawn a glimpse of the rewards of being part of a fast-growing, successful company. He also got a first look at what it means to be a founder and entrepreneur.

A Fraudulent Lawsuit and the Birth of an Idea

Entrepreneurs often find inspiration in unexpected places. Shawn’s idea for his first company was born from a frustrating personal experience. While driving his convertible, a woman accused him of hitting her even though the car was stopped at a light.

The insurance company ultimately handled the fraudulent claim, but the incident sparked an idea–there should be a way to record and prevent such false accusations.

The solution? A forward-facing mobile video system—the precursor to the now-ubiquitous dash cams used in taxis, buses, and personal vehicles. Thus, Shawn invented this groundbreaking gadget.

Fundraising for this venture was no easy feat. Shawn recalls raising capital from high-net-worth individuals, often in small amounts between $10K and $50K.

While Shawn’s sales background made pitching somewhat natural, the process was still new and challenging. Investors loved the idea and team and didn’t do much due diligence. Eventually, the company raised $30M from venture capitalists, leading to its acquisition by its largest distributor.

Shawn describes the exit as “bittersweet” and “not a home run,” but it was a crucial learning experience that prepared him for future ventures. The company had reached a point where it had customers, a run rate, and a little over $20M in revenues.

Shawn needed to raise another $40M to $50M to fully commercialize and work out the few technology and software bugs that kept cropping up in the field.

However, this was around 2000 when the dot-com era was booming, and investors weren’t interested in a hardware systems platform, which was unfortunate. The company was running out of cash but had a strong patent position and book of business.

Breakthroughs in Biotech: Linguagen and Beyond

With one exit under his belt, Shawn ventured into biotech with the founding of Linguagen–a company focused on creating compounds to enhance taste and block bitterness. He partnered with a world-famous scientist who was the world’s leading expert in the taste sensation.

This scientist had elucidated the gene structures of taste buds, which have specialized receptors. Next, they took the gene sequences, cloned them, and expressed them outside the body in a high-throughput screening platform to isolate synthetic receptors.

They then used the receptors to test unknown compounds to note their reactions. One of the most notable products was a compound that enhanced the sweetness of natural sugar by 50%, allowing for reduced sugar content in foods without sacrificing flavor.

The company also developed a salt substitute with no sodium, compounds to block bitterness in medications, and enhancers of the savory MSG sensation without sodium. Linguagen went public in 2005 and was eventually acquired by a major player in the flavor and fragrance industry.

While exciting, the IPO process was not without its challenges. “Investors can be very fickle,” Shawn notes, recalling the highs and lows of securing investors and raising capital. The IPO was a reverse merger, similar to the modern-day SPAC (Special Purpose Acquisition Company) model.

Diagnosing the Future: SensiGen and Early Exits

Returning to his diagnostics roots at Abbott Laboratories, Shawn founded SensiGen, which developed high-value diagnostic tests on a proprietary platform, including one for cervical cancer, a molecular test for human papillomavirus, chronic kidney disease, and a prognostic test for lupus.

Shawn remembers partnering with Sequenom, which had a hardware platform on which SensiGen ran its tests. He had a global strategic deal with the company where they provided the system, and SensiGen provided the chemistry.

After raising significant seed funding worth $6M and nearing a Series A, Shawn faced a decision: take a substantial offer to sell the company or risk the uncertain venture capital market during the financial crisis of 2008. After doing a thorough risk assessment, he chose the former.

Shawn had a term sheet from a blue-chip group of VCs but approached the CEO of Sequenom for the Series A round. Instead, he got an offer to sell the company and ended up securing an early exit with a significant return for investors.

Shawn’s ability to assess risk and make strategic decisions has been a hallmark of his success. “A bird in the hand,” he says, referring to his decision to sell rather than gamble on an uncertain funding environment during the economic downturn.

Building & Exiting Metamark

Post-acquisition, Shawn remained with Sequenom and rolled out four other projects. He enjoyed the experience of starting and developing companies, building a management team, creating a business plan, raising funding, and attracting good people for a satisfying exit for stakeholders.

One of Shawn’s most exciting projects was Metamark Genetics, which LabCorp acquired in just 3.5 years. Metamark is a cutting-edge platform that solves the problem of under-diagnosed and poorly diagnosed prostate cancer, of which there are 250,000 cases each year.

Before Metamark, the only way to diagnose prostate cancer was to get a biopsy, which couldn’t detect whether or not it was benign since it is a slow-growing form of cancer. 75% of patients have the aggressive, fast-growing kind that is malignant.

Patients would be unsure whether to get surgery since it comes with unpleasant side effects like erectile dysfunction and incontinence. Shawn developed a test that could distinguish cancer from benign or malignant with a phenomenal 90% accuracy.

However, Metamark wasn’t equipped for worldwide distribution and would need to raise $200M to commercialize it, leading to its exit.

From Academia to $350M Exits

Following SensiGen, Shawn mentored startups at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering and other prestigious institutions, helping incubate new technologies, advising on spinouts, and determining which companies should pitch for funding.

Shawn’s connection to the academic world led him to co-found ReadCoor, a biotech company that spun out of Harvard and raised an impressive $23.5M Series A from four different funds, including Blue Chip funds.

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ReadCoor was eventually acquired for $350M, marking one of Shawn’s most significant exits. He attributes much of his success to the startup-oriented network of innovators and institutions around Harvard, Mass General, MIT, and several institutions in the Boston-Cambridge area.

“The schools and institutions are all focused on getting intellectual property and innovations out into the real world,” he says. This emphasis on translation from academia to application had always been a driving force behind many of Shawn’s ventures, making him ideal for the role.

Reflecting on his exits, Shawn talks about how they would take the cash, lease facilities, build out the team, and begin platform development. Institutions appreciate people like him who have a track record of innovation. They want to put their best ideas in the hands of people like him.

That’s because they are confident they will get great results from the technology, which is precisely what happened with ReadCoor. At ReadCoor, they pioneered the first spatial sequence ever to map neural connections.

The $350M exit brought investors six times worth of returns in just four years, which is incredible.

The Key to Success: Knowing When to Exit

Shawn stresses the importance of timing during exits. When the right opportunities come up, it is not advisable to try to get more value or emotionally attached. A good example is Shawn’s exit from SensiGen in 2008, just before the 2009 downturn, and ReadCoor’s high-stakes acquisition.

Each exit has resulted from carefully considering market conditions, company needs, and investor interests. Shawn’s ability to make these decisions has led to a string of successful outcomes for both himself and his investors.

Shawn has hired CEOs for his next two ventures and talks about how his priorities have shifted. He advises on strategic metrics, participates in financing, hires the management teams, and builds the strategic plan. He is also involved in creating IP and critical decision-making.

However, Shawn is also happy to delegate the day-to-day operations of Bifrost Biosystems and SemPresto to younger and more energetic people.

As Shawn reveals, Bifrost Biosystems is about pharma development, identifying drug targets, characterizing them, and taking them through all the stages of development. It’s one of the most powerful pharmaceutical development research tools he has developed.

With SemPresto, Shawn integrated the epinephrine auto-injector with cellphones to ensure that people with allergies always have quick and easy access to treatment. The solutions prevent fatal anaphylaxis that affects millions of people.

In Conclusion

As he continues to mentor and advise emerging startups, Shawn’s story is a powerful example of the entrepreneurial journey—from humble beginnings in Seattle to leading cutting-edge innovations in diagnostics and biotech.

Shawn’s message to aspiring founders is clear: embrace risk, stay adaptable, and always be ready to seize the right opportunity when it is presented.

Listen to the full podcast episode to know more, including:

• Shawn’s background in debate and marketing shaped his ability to effectively pitch ideas to investors and attract top talent, which became essential throughout his career as an entrepreneur.
• His experience at Centocor, acquired by Johnson & Johnson, introduced him to stock options and the financial rewards of fast-growing companies, providing early insights into acquisitions and equity value.
• A personal incident involving a fraudulent lawsuit inspired Shawn’s first venture, creating a forward-facing mobile video system, which became the precursor to modern dashcams.
• Shawn’s decision to sell SensiGen during the 2008 financial crisis rather than gamble on uncertain venture capital funding highlights his ability to assess risks strategically and time exits.
• Shawn’s ventures in biotech, including Linguagen and Metamark, led to groundbreaking innovations, such as taste-enhancing compounds and advanced diagnostic tools for cancer, showcasing his adaptability across industries.
• Shawn’s connections with institutions like Harvard and MIT played a critical role in launching ReadCoor, a biotech company that achieved a $350M exit. This illustrates the power of academic-industry collaboration.
• Shawn emphasizes the importance of knowing when to exit, advising entrepreneurs to avoid getting emotionally attached and instead focus on market conditions and investor interests to secure the best outcomes.

 

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