Journal
What a Cambridge spin-out website needs before a funding round
Investors will look you up before the first meeting. Here is what your site should show them, and what it should leave out.
Most Cambridge spin-outs start life with a holding page: a logo, a sentence about the technology and an email address. That is fine while the company is a licence agreement and a couple of founders working out of an incubator. It stops being fine the moment you start talking to investors, because almost every one of them will look at your website before they look at your deck.
The website does not win the round. It can, however, quietly lose you credibility, or leave a good first impression that makes the first meeting easier. Here is what we think a spin-out site needs at that stage.
1. A one-line explanation anyone can repeat
The single most useful thing on the homepage is a sentence that a generalist investor could repeat to a colleague. Not the abstract of your key paper, and not a slogan. Something like “We are developing a new class of antibody that reaches targets inside cells” is more useful than “Pioneering next-generation biologics”.
Write it, then test it on someone outside your field. If they cannot explain it back to you, try again. It is harder than it sounds, and it is worth doing before anyone designs anything, because the rest of the site hangs off it.
2. Layers of detail
Your audience ranges from generalist investors to specialist scientists on a partner’s due diligence team. Rather than writing for the middle and satisfying nobody, structure the explanation in layers:
- Headline: the one-liner above.
- Overview: a few plain paragraphs on the problem, your approach and why it matters.
- Technical detail: the mechanism, the platform, key data, with diagrams where they help.
- Evidence: publications, posters and patents, linked properly.
Each layer should link to the next. A generalist reads the first two and moves on; a scientist goes all the way down. Nobody has to wade through content meant for someone else.
3. A team page with substance
At seed and Series A, investors are backing people as much as technology. Your team page should include founders, key staff, scientific advisers and board members, each with a short, specific biography. Mention previous companies, relevant research groups and roles. Link to profiles where useful.
Avoid stock headshots of different styles stitched together. A single afternoon with a photographer, in your own lab or office, makes the team look like a team.
4. Pipeline or roadmap, handled carefully
If you are a therapeutics company, a pipeline chart is expected. Keep it honest: show the stage each programme has actually reached, not where you hope it will be next year. If you are a platform or deep-tech company, a simple roadmap or list of applications works better.
Be careful with claims. Words like “cure”, “first” and “proven” attract scrutiny. If you are working in a regulated area, or plan to, get someone to review the language. Our rule is that every factual claim on a science site should be one your chief scientific officer would defend in a room full of peers.
5. News that shows momentum
A news section with three items from two years ago looks worse than no news section. If you have one, keep it current: grants won, papers published, hires made, partnerships signed, conference talks. Short posts are fine. The point is to show a company that is moving.
Make sure your news template allows you to time a post for an embargo, because funding announcements and partnership news are often released at a set time.
6. A careers page that answers questions
Hiring in Cambridge is competitive. The big employers on the Biomedical Campus and the science parks offer stability; a spin-out offers interesting work and equity. Your careers page should say plainly what working there is like: where you are based, how people get to work, how big the team is, what stage you are at and how you work. List vacancies with real detail rather than a single “send us your CV” line.
7. Clear routes for different enquiries
Investors, potential partners, journalists and job applicants all need a way to get in touch. One generic address mixes them up. A contact page with a few short routes, or a form with an enquiry type, helps the right person respond quickly.
8. The technical basics
None of this matters if the site is slow, broken on a phone or insecure. At minimum you need:
- A secure connection (HTTPS) and a domain email address, not a personal Gmail.
- Fast page loads on mobile.
- Proper page titles and descriptions so your company appears correctly in search results.
- Basic analytics, set up in line with your privacy policy.
- A privacy policy and cookie approach that actually match what the site does.
A worked example: one homepage, three readers
Take a hypothetical spin-out developing a new imaging method for early cancer detection, based in an incubator on the north side of the city. Three people land on its homepage in the same week.
| Visitor | What they want | Where the site should send them |
|---|---|---|
| Generalist investor | The problem, the size of the opportunity, the team | Overview page, team page, latest news |
| Clinician at a partner hospital | How the method works and what evidence exists | Technology page, publications list |
| Postdoc considering a move | The work, the culture, the location and the stage | Careers page with open roles |
A homepage that serves all three does not need much text. It needs the one-liner, a short paragraph of context, and three clear routes: “Our technology”, “Team and investors”, “Join us”. Each route then does the detailed work. The mistake we see most often is a homepage that tries to be all three pages at once and ends up as a long scroll nobody finishes.
Who should own the content
In a company of five to fifteen people, the website usually belongs to whoever has a spare evening, which means it belongs to nobody. Give one person clear ownership, usually the CEO or whoever handles investor relations, with a scientist named as reviewer for technical pages. Agree a simple rhythm: news within a week of anything notable, team page updated when someone joins, and a quick review of every page each quarter. This is also where a sensible platform choice matters; if updating the team page needs a developer, it will not happen. Our science and biotech websites work is built around this kind of handover.
Pre-raise checklist
- One-line explanation tested on a non-specialist
- Overview, technology and evidence pages linked in layers
- Team page with specific biographies and consistent photography
- Pipeline or roadmap that reflects the real stage of each programme
- News updated within the last two months
- Careers page with real role detail
- Separate enquiry routes for investors, partners, press and candidates
- HTTPS, company email domain, fast mobile pages, accurate page titles
- Privacy policy that matches the analytics and forms actually in use
- Every claim reviewed by your chief scientific officer
What to leave out
Some things are better left off at this stage:
- Unpublished data that your IP team has not cleared.
- Investor names unless they have agreed to be named.
- Long mission statements that say nothing specific.
- Stock images of glowing molecules. Real photographs of your lab, even modest ones, are more convincing.
Timing
A small, well-structured spin-out site can be designed and built in four to eight weeks, but the content usually takes longer than the build. Founders are busy, scientific explanations need several drafts, and photography needs scheduling. If you are planning a raise in the spring, start on the website in the autumn.
If you are also thinking about how the site will rank for the technical terms partners search for, our notes on writing science for non-specialists and our SEO service cover the overlap.