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Adrien Cohen
Founding MD SCI Ventures, ex-Founder Tractable, Lazada
Adrien Cohen is a renowned tech entrepreneur and investor with a track record of founding two unicorn companies - Tractable, a top computer vision unicorn globally, and Lazada, a leading e-commerce platform in South East Asia which was acquired by Alibaba for $3 billion.
Adrien Cohen is currently focused on driving a specialized Venture Fund aimed at neuro-regeneration to work towards curing paralysis. He holds a diverse educational background with a Master's in Management from HEC Paris, an MBA in Management from Tsinghua University, and completed his Prep School at Lycée Carnot.
Throughout his career, Adrien Cohen has held key positions in various organizations including Founding Managing Director at SCI Ventures, Board & Advisor at Tractable, and roles as a Startup Mentor in AI, Neuro, and Climate streams at Creative Destruction Lab in Oxford, Toronto, and Paris. He has also been involved in co-founding and managing director roles at Tractable and Lazada Group in South East Asia. Adrien Cohen has prior experience in corporate strategy, consulting, and investment banking with notable firms like Groupama, Oneida Associes, and Goldman Sachs.
Highlights
Thank you BFM Business TV for the conversation this morning on the recent launch of our philanthropic fund SCI Ventures. We have announced our first fund with over $27m and aim to raise $40m by the end of the year. Our mission is to accelerate innovation for people living with a spinal cord injury (SCI) - 15 million people are left today with limited options, with average lifetime costs ranging from $3m to $6m. It was great to discuss some of the companies we have already invested in: ONWARD Medical, Axonis Therapeutics, Sania Therapeutics, and Augmental . We plan to support up to 20 startups to translate scientific advances into clinical solutions. The innovation we back will yield impact beyond SCI - epilepsy, stroke, neurodegenerative disorders...
SCI is both treatable and investable! A big thank you to Laure Closier, Anthony Morel, and BFM Business for this interview.
3 years ago, my brother sustained a spinal cord injury which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Paralysis has dramatic impacts - beyond the loss of movement, it affects many other functions - bladder, bowel, respiratory...
After the accident, I reached out to dozens of scientific teams. I tried to understand who was working on what, and how far we were from functional recovery.
I ended up quite frustrated - I could see exciting innovation and progress in the lab, but no vehicle to help translate it and bring it to the real world. Meanwhile, 15 million people live with paralysis today and are left with limited options.
That is why it feels special to me to announce SCI Ventures - the first philanthropic venture fund created to catalyze the next generation of treatments for paralysis. Recent scientific and technological advancements have made recovery from paralysis a real possibility - our fund will serve as a catalyst to bringing promising breakthroughs to the clinic.
We will invest in early-stage companies developing the next generation of treatments, targeting functional improvement in the near term while also backing the ultimate goal of a cure. I don't know when we will get to a cure - but with the backing & combined network of the leading Foundations in the US, EU and UK , I am confident we will be the best game in town to activate the market and spark more innovation in the field!
And since spinal cord injury is a natural starting point for many other complex conditions – stroke and neurodegenerative disorders – the technologies we back will yield impact beyond the SCI community.
Very grateful to our backing Foundations - Christopher & Dana Reeve Foundation who initiated the model, Spinal Research, Wings for Life - Spinal Cord Research Foundation , Promobilia Foundation, Shepherd Center and to the philanthropy-minded families that are supporting us and donating not just capital but also time and expertise (Ian Curtis, Tom Londres Jean-Baptiste WAUTIER Willie Watt Fotis Hasiotis Niall El-Assaad Monique Cohen Rob Shelton, Ann Gloag, Jon Ayers ...).
If you are working on exciting tech in neuro-regeneration, or feel passionate about making a difference in the space - reach out !
