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Daniella Kranjac Matthias Knab, Opalesque for New Managers: "We're investing in the invisible layer of biotech - the picks and shovels"
Opalesque is a Media Partner of SuperReturn International 2026 in Berlin, with Opalesque founder Matthias Knab participating. As the world's largest and most influential conference for private equity and venture capital, more than 2,000 LPs (Limited Partners) managing over $50 trillion in assets and over 3,000 GPs (General Partners) are represented.
Today I had the opportunity to speak with AVANT BIO founding general partner Daniella Kranjac on why she deliberately avoids binary therapeutic risk, the "golden age" of life sciences, where AI is still missing in pharma, and how an emerging manager survives SuperReturn.
Daniella Kranjac has spent 26 years in life sciences - and she did the operating before she did the investing. She co-founded her first company, bootstrapped it, scaled it and sold it to GE, then ran M&A inside the group. Today she is founding general partner of AVANT BIO, a growth equity firm that invests not in therapies themselves but in the machinery behind them: the tools, technologies and services that biotech and pharma cannot function without.
We caught up with her at SuperReturn, where she had just come off moderating an LP panel, to talk through her thesis, the companies she is backing - and, because it is that kind of conference, how she actually gets through the week.
The invisible layer
Matthias Knab: Tell us what AVANT BIO actually invests in.
Daniella Kranjac: We're a growth equity fund focused entirely on life sciences, tech bio and health tech. What that means is that we invest in the invisible layer of biotech and pharma - the tools, the technologies, the services, the functions that biotech and pharma fundamentally and critically need to do what they do, whether it's discovery, development, manufacturing or delivery. We are that invisible layer of picks and shovels.
We don't invest in binary therapeutics - we deliberately stay away from that space. It's very well serviced by other funds, and it means we don't take any of the binary risk associated with a therapeutic asset. We're really a picks-and-shovels play.
A golden age
Matthias Knab: What excites you about your space right now?
Daniella Kranjac: It's an incredible time. I grew up in this space as an operator - I co-founded my first company, bootstrapped it, scaled it and sold it to GE, and then did M&A at GE. I've been in the industry for 26 years, and there has never been a more exciting moment. With the convergence of biology, technology and AI, we've coined it the golden age of biotech and life sciences. Anthropic's Dario Amodei - trained, interestingly, as a biologist - has talked about AI driving a kind of renaissance in biology, because of how this convergence is going to accelerate the science. It really is an amazing time.
We're particularly excited about Europe. Valuations are very attractive, the science is great, the technical founders are strong and the underlying science is solid. And the opportunity set is unusual: there's a lot of funding at the early stage and there are large players at the buyout stage, but in this critical growth segment - call it life science industrials - there are very few players, if any.
Where AI is still missing in pharma
Matthias Knab: Where are the specific opportunities you're looking at?
Daniella Kranjac: AI is a huge impetus right now, but we're not excited about the part everyone has crowded into. There's been a ton of AI applied to drug discovery - it's been heavily overweighted. The gap is applying AI to the other functions in pharma: formulation, delivery, quality, clinical trials. Those parts of the value chain have barely been addressed by AI, and that's where the exciting opportunity is.
Intrepid Labs and the patent cliff
Matthias Knab: Can you give an example of a company?
Daniella Kranjac: Intrepid Labs, based in Toronto. An incredible group, spun out of the university, with world-leading expertise in formulation - which is basically how a drug is delivered and how you take it: once a week, once a day, twice a day. What makes this so interesting is the patent cliff you hear so much about in biopharma. Around $400 billion of revenue is coming off patent over the next five years, so pharma has a real challenge to deal with.
One way to deal with it is formulation. If you can change the formulation - make something a once-daily, once-weekly or once-monthly product - you can extend its lifetime. Extend a $14 billion drug by even a year and you can do the math. Intrepid is applying AI and robotics to traditional formulation, with deep expertise, and solving these genuinely difficult problems for pharma.
Fund II, and a strategic backer base
Matthias Knab: Where are you in the fund's life?
Daniella Kranjac: This is Fund II, and we're actively deploying right now - we're not in market at the moment, we are deploying. We're backed by a fair amount of strategic investors; most of our backing has been strategic in nature, alongside family offices and individuals from my network. So we're deploying actively right now.
One billion slides
Matthias Knab: You mentioned health tech as well.
Daniella Kranjac: We're also really excited about digital pathology. To give you some context: globally there are about one billion pathology slides every year, and only about 5 to 10% of those are digitized. That's a massive opportunity - for data generation, for better information for health systems, for better patient access and better patient care. We've invested in a company called PathPresenter, which does this for hospital systems like Memorial Sloan Kettering and the University of Chicago - building the backbone and harmonizing the data so that those pathology slides are accessible to the pathologist.
How to survive SuperReturn
Matthias Knab: Last one, and lighter - how do you survive SuperReturn?
Daniella Kranjac: Hydrate. Hydration is the key - it's a lot of talking over a long day.
Matthias Knab: And how do you make the best of it, especially as an emerging manager?
Daniella Kranjac: As an emerging manager you have a limited budget for conferences, so a big part of it is just being accessible and available, and doing the extra outreach. The matchmaking platform can be hard - a lot of LPs don't get onto it; they're often just there to attend the sessions. So being at the event and being on a panel is hugely helpful for exposure. I was lucky enough to moderate the LP panel at the Women in Private Markets Summit on Monday - four rock-star LPs, and very well attended. That's a great way to do it.
The side events are great too. One thing I'd like to do more of is a focused dinner: if you're specialized in one area, bring together a few GPs who are complementary rather than competing - in life sciences, health tech, tech bio - which can be a really valuable thing to do. And, more practically: comfortable shoes. It's a long day, so change your shoes before the evening event. But start with hydrate.
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