Founded in 2018, BioscienceLA is an innovation catalyst for life sciences and health innovation in the greater LA region, creating more opportunities for funding, space, and talent, as well as messaging and awareness-building. The independent not-for-profit organization ensures that Los Angeles has a collaborative, well-coalesced ecosystem that encompasses all aspects of the Southern California life sciences cluster. The organization turned to DocSend to securely share sensitive financial information with board members, disseminate program information to program participants, and execute partnership agreements with participating organizations.

The Challenge

Prior to DocSend, David J. Whelan, CEO of BioscienceLA, indicated that the organization would share sensitive information with its board via email attachments. “We needed a more secure way of sharing sensitive financial and strategic information with our board. Email attachments would get lost or were hard to open on mobile, so there had to be a better way,” Dave shared.

The Solution:

Dave turned to DocSend’s secure document sharing platform to safely distribute communications with the organization’s board of directors, as well as onboard program participants for a new internship program.

Hosting internal documents securely with Dropbox

When Dave first joined BioscienceLA as the CEO, he wanted to ensure that his team could effectively collaborate remotely. As an early adopter of Dropbox, Dave knew it was the right solution to bring onboard for its cloud file sync and storage capabilities. Whether it’s the creation of program plans, financial plans, or internal notes, Dave and his organization rely on Dropbox to safely house all of their internal files, so they can remain focused on their mission. “It’s really easy for us to be able to access planning documents we’ve created in Dropbox from anywhere. We’re opening a new site in Culver City, so being able to securely access our files on-the-go is important for us.”

I brought DocSend on to share presentations and financials with our board. It’s been helpful for me to see who has interacted with a document before a meeting. DocSend’s analytics let me know how to best prepare and tailor the meeting to our board members’ top interests.

David J. Whelan

CEO, BioscienceLA

A more secure way of sharing external non-profit board communications

When sharing information outside of his organization, Dave wanted to ensure that all sensitive information was protected. Particularly, Dave wanted to protect the sensitive files he shares with the nonprofit’s board of directors. “I share presentations and financials with our board members before and after meetings. I wanted to add additional protections to ensure that these materials weren’t getting into the wrong hands,” Dave shared.

While other document sharing solutions were easy to access by third-parties, Dave is able to protect his sensitive documents by adding a password and require email addresses to access powerpoints, PDFs, excel documents, and word documents that he shares in DocSend.

Seamless updates to board communications

When sending meeting agendas to board members, Dave previously used to send attachments. “Sending these materials as attachments was not sustainable for us because sometimes I would need to make updates to the agenda and did not want updated versions getting lost,” Dave shared. In order to maintain concise communication with board members, Dave turned to DocSend as an easier way to seamlessly update documents on the backend, without having to go back and update the original link. “It’s a much more respectful way of communicating with our board members, when we can easily go in and make any edits or updates with DocSend behind the scenes, without having to notify everyone,” Dave shared.

DocSend makes it much easier for us to access one link with all of the current information. For example, if a board meeting agenda changes, I can make updates behind the scenes, without notifying everyone.

David J. Whelan

CEO, BioscienceLA

Onboarding program participants using virtual data rooms

As part of its mission to advance the capacity and pace of innovation in the field of biosciences, BioscienceLA offers a BioFutures Internship Program that connects students from underrepresented backgrounds with subsidized internships with bioscience organizations in the Los Angeles area.

Once a company agrees to host an intern, participating companies are sent their own unique DocSend Spaces that hold program materials and participation contracts. Additionally, interns also receive a customized Space with individualized documents related to the program. The content portal contains everything that partners would need to know about the internship program, including schedules and responsibilities. This prevents materials from getting lost and creates a more personalized experience with each partnership organization and intern. DocSend makes it simple for BioScienceLA to create an organized onboarding process and overall program experience for partnership organizations and interns alike with DocSend.

Executing partnership agreements with DocSend eSignature

Using DocSend’s eSignature, company partners participating in BioscienceLA’s internship program can sign their partnership agreements. Similarly, once an intern is accepted to the program, each student participant signs their agreement contracts in DocSend. Both students and partners are able to easily review all onboarding documents describing their responsibilities in the program, as well as sign their participation agreements using DocSend’s eSignature. Dave saves time by easily dragging and dropping custom signature fields in DocSend to collect signed participation agreements.

DocSend’s eSignature is super intuitive and helps streamline our contractual agreements between partners and interns. . Each party can sign their agreements in a personalized content hub that holds all other relevant program information to ensure ease of access and understanding.

David J. Whelan

CEO, BioscienceLA

The post BioscienceLA relies on DocSend to securely share external communications with their board of directors and partners appeared first on DocSend.

The Covid challenge: How to run an LP meeting virtually

However, in 2020 with COVID keeping everyone stranded at home, face-to-face LP meetings are no longer an option and VCs are finding new ways to maintain effective communication with their LPs.

“When COVID hit, it put all travel to a halt so we knew that we needed to explore new digital ways to engage our LPs. Since everyone is used to Zoom, we were able to effectively host our 2020 LP meeting there and securely share our materials ahead of time with DocSend,” says Kevin Pineda, Finance Manager at August Capital.

The benefits of virtual LP meetings

While face-to-face networking interactions are fairly absent from virtual LP meetings, there are some benefits to hosting your meeting virtually: increased attendance.

“The digital format made it easier for people to attend since there was no travel required which also made it more cost-effective for certain LPs,” said Kevin. “Due to the increased accessibility, LPs were more inclined to invite additional team members, especially junior colleagues. As a result, our attendance was roughly twice as large as our last in-person meeting.”

The digital format made it easier for people to attend ... As a result, our attendance was roughly twice as large as our last in-person meeting.

Kevin Pineda

Finance Manager, August Capital

DocSend enables easy and secure sharing of sensitive meeting materials

When it comes to DocSend, August Capital leverages DocSend’s secure virtual data rooms to share all materials ahead of time with their LPs while ensuring that all sensitive information is kept secure. This not only makes all meeting materials more accessible but also allows Kevin to make updates to documents up until the time of the meeting without the need to re-share the files.

Using analytics to drive better LP engagement

In addition, by sharing through DocSend, Kevin receives valuable feedback on how LPs engage with the materials for the meeting. This feedback helps him confirm assumptions on what information LPs find interesting so that he can increase LP engagement in future meetings.

“Before DocSend we based our content strategy mostly on feedback surveys from our previous meetings. That said, I’m a big data guy so being able to understand how each LP is engaging with the information we’ve presented in DocSend helps us more effectively identify ways we can continue to bring insightful content to our investors in the future,” Kevin said.

Being able to understand how each LP is engaging with the information we’ve presented in DocSend helps us more effectively identify ways we can continue to bring insightful content to our investors in the future.

Kevin Pineda

Finance Manager, August Capital

Close communication with LPs while everyone is remote will continue to be top of mind for VC firms throughout 2021 and beyond. The good news is that it is still feasible and there are even some benefits to running your next LP meeting remotely. VC firms who are able to adopt new technologies like Zoom or DocSend will surely be the ones to see the most success as we continue to navigate this new work from home lifestyle. If you’re interested in trying DocSend for your next investor update or LP meeting, click here to start a two-week trial.

The post August Capital Transforms Their LP Meetings with DocSend appeared first on DocSend.