Client Assignment · Technology · Life Sciences
A technology company questioning its future — and a market no one had properly sized.
A Fortune 500 technology company. A structural shift forming in life sciences. A bottom-up market sizing no one had attempted. And a $100 million commitment within six months.
CLIENT
Fortune 500 technology company
OUTCOME
$100M committed within six months
THE CHALLENGE
A technology company at a crossroads — and a market no one had yet committed to.
The organization was at a point of strategic uncertainty. The market was questioning whether it had a future in the form it had always known.
The question internally was the same: where is the next meaningful growth platform?
What Made This Different
A bottom-up market sizing no one had attempted.
The standard approach to market sizing in technology at the time was top-down — take a large number, apply a penetration rate, project forward.
The problem with that approach for a market as nascent as information technology in drug discovery was that the large number didn't exist yet.
WHAT vaxa DID
From initial pitch to full market entry — across four connected workstreams.
01
Market Sizing & Investment Justification
Built a bottom-up market sizing of information technology within drug discovery — the first rigorous attempt to quantify the opportunity. The analysis justified the initial investment decision and provided the strategic foundation for everything that followed.
02
Go-to-Market Strategy & Technology Architecture
Developed the full go-to-market strategy for the life sciences opportunity — defining the target segments, the technology architecture overlay mapping where IBM's capabilities were most relevant within the drug discovery process, and the sequencing of market entry.
03
Channel Ecosystem Design & Build
Designed and built the complete channel ecosystem — direct, indirect, and everything in between. Identified and recruited global partners across data, applications, and services. Built the partner program framework, determined the partner mix required to generate the target revenue, and designed the phased channel model: 80/20 direct/indirect in year one, progressing to 70/30 and then 60/40 as the ecosystem matured.
04
Corporate Venture Capital Program
Helped design and justify the organization's first corporate venture capital program — $25 million deployed across five VC funds to gain early visibility into the data and tools ecosystem that the technology platform would depend on. This was among the first corporate VC programs in enterprise technology and became one of the most significant in the industry.
The Outcome
A $100 million commitment. A market entered. A venturing capability established.
01
$100 million committed to the life sciences opportunity
Within six months of the initial engagement, the organization committed $100 million to the life sciences market — a decision directly supported by the Vaxa market sizing and go-to-market strategy.
02
A channel ecosystem built from scratch
A complete direct and indirect channel ecosystem designed, recruited, and operationalized — from partner program design through to the phased channel model that balanced speed to market with ecosystem maturity.
03
A corporate venture capital program established
$25 million deployed across five VC funds. One of the first and most significant corporate VC programs in enterprise technology — designed to accelerate visibility into the emerging data and tools ecosystem.
04