Joël Besse

Investor in Biotech, Medtech, Dx, Fintech, AI, VC Funds Advisor

📍 United Kingdom🔄 Updated September 2026💼 10 investments📅 10 years investing🗓 Last invested Nov 2024
VC🌍 United Kingdom
10
Total investments
6
Early stage
2
Mid stage
0
Late stage
10y
Years active

Portfolio

10 investments · sorted by recency
All investments
Early stage
Mid stage
Late stage
Angel Investor
Nov 2024
Response Pharmaceuticals is developing its lead asset, RDX-002, a first-in-class weight management and cardiometabolic health drug with confirmed efficacy and safety in >550 subjects. All programs are in Phase 2 clinical development. Our initial focus is on helping underserved patient populations taking antipsychotic medications for disabling mental illnesses to combat weight gain and metabolic dysregulation associated with these treatments. Antipsychotic-induced weight gain (AIWG) is a drug-induced epidemic within the already vulnerable population of patients with severe mental illness, and is contributing to a growing mortality gap between people with mental illness and the general population. Additionally, RDX-002 is being evaluated in other settings in which clinically significant weight gain and/or adverse metabolic changes are prevalent.
Angel Investor
Dec 2022
Longlive is a health-tech company building AI-driven solutions that improve clinical decision-making, early intervention and preventative health at scale. We operate at the intersection of life sciences, med-tech and digital health, transforming how clinicians and individuals access clarity, confidence and personalised guidance. Our mission is to close critical gaps in care pathways — from compression therapy to chronic disease prevention — by combining intelligent data, clinical insight and wearable technology into tools that support safer, earlier and more consistent decision-making. Our flagship innovation is the AI-Guided Clinical Compression Assistant, designed to help non-specialist clinicians start safe, guideline-aligned compression therapy in under two minutes. This addresses a long-standing clinical need, where up to 80% of eligible patients never receive appropriate compression in primary care due to uncertainty and lack of confidence. By reducing this friction, we aim to improve healing outcomes while supporting more consistent utilisation of evidence-based therapy across venous, oedema and wound-care pathways. Alongside our clinical AI work, the Longlive platform supports preventative health and corporate wellbeing through intelligent insights derived from wearable data, personalised coaching, early risk detection and behaviour-change support. Our broader goal is to empower individuals and organisations with tools that promote healthier lives and reduce avoidable healthcare burden. We are guided by a simple principle: technology should enable better decisions — for clinicians, for patients, and for and for the health systems that serve them. If youre exploring advancements in clinical decision support, wound care innovation, preventative health or digital transformation, we’d love to connect.
Angel Investor
Dec 2022
We make and sell brain imaging systems showing neural activity called magnetoencephalographs (MEG). We democratize the use of MEG, using a space technology, to effectively detect brain defects and improve brain cares
Angel Investor
Jul 2022
Ramify réinvente la gestion de patrimoine en offrant aux particuliers laccès à des solutions dignes des plus grandes banques privées. Gestion pilotée, immobilier, private equity ou encore solutions d’épargne : notre approche allie expertise, diversification et innovation pour bâtir un avenir financier à la hauteur de vos ambitions.
Angel Investor
Feb 2022
The future of recombinant protein bioproduction.
Angel Investor
Dec 2021
Deciphering white matter to enable better care
Angel Investor
Apr 2021
QurCan Therapeutics (formerly Nanology Labs Inc) is a biotechnology company using advanced nanoparticle drug-delivery technology to unleash the immense potential of next-generation biological and genetic medicine and deliver life-changing therapeutics. QurCans next generation nanoparticle platform, TERP, enables tissue-selective delivery of nucleotides and biological therapeutics to extra-hepatic sites, including brain and spleen. TERP technology is a breakthrough technology with the great potential to deliver a new era of disease-modifying genetic medicine that will make a difference to patients with a wide range of unmet medical needs.
Angel Investor
Dec 2020
Astrocyte Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage drug discovery and development company dedicated to accelerating the recovery and well-being of brain injury patients. Astrocyte is committed to proving the neuro- and cerebroprotective benefits of enhanced mitochondrial energy production in astrocytes, and advancing breakthrough therapeutic agents for treating brain injury resulting from stroke, TBI, concussion, and neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease.
Angel investor, advisor
Nov 2016
NH TherAguix is a biotech company registered at RCS Grenoble and based 19, Chemin des prés, 38240 Meylan
Angel Investor and Advisor
Jul 2016
Owkin is building the first BASI to unlock breakthroughs in therapies, diagnostics, and rejuvenation, while reshaping how humanity understands and engineers biology. Like other frontier AI companies, we believe the leap from narrow tools to true reasoning systems marks the start of a new era — where intelligence is not just assisting scientists but autonomously advancing discovery. Owkin’s moats are structural and compounding. We are creating the only large-scale reasoning model trained natively on patient-level multimodal data and reinforced through real biological feedback — a closed-loop system that continuously improves itself. Exclusive partnerships with world-class hospitals, unique longitudinal datasets, and automated lab infrastructure create a defensibility flywheel similar to the data moats seen in other generational AI companies. By uniting reasoning models, agentic workflows, and living biological systems, Owkin is building the operating system for biology — a platform no one else can replicate, and the inevitable leader in general-purpose biology intelligence.
Experience · 14 entries
All (14)
Investments (10)
Founder (1)
2024
Angel Investor
Nov 2024
Response Pharmaceuticals is developing its lead asset, RDX-002, a first-in-class weight management and cardiometabolic health drug with confirmed efficacy and safety in >550 subjects. All programs are in Phase 2 clinical development. Our initial focus is on helping underserved patient populations taking antipsychotic medications for disabling mental illnesses to combat weight gain and metabolic dysregulation associated with these treatments. Antipsychotic-induced weight gain (AIWG) is a drug-induced epidemic within the already vulnerable population of patients with severe mental illness, and is contributing to a growing mortality gap between people with mental illness and the general population. Additionally, RDX-002 is being evaluated in other settings in which clinically significant weight gain and/or adverse metabolic changes are prevalent.
2023
Advisor
Dec 2023
At Save the Children Global Ventures we are working with technology start-ups and investors to give children a better world. Our work complements traditional grant-making and philanthropy with an increased use of innovative financing instruments, including loans, guarantees and blended finance funds.
2022
Angel Investor
Dec 2022
Longlive is a health-tech company building AI-driven solutions that improve clinical decision-making, early intervention and preventative health at scale. We operate at the intersection of life sciences, med-tech and digital health, transforming how clinicians and individuals access clarity, confidence and personalised guidance. Our mission is to close critical gaps in care pathways — from compression therapy to chronic disease prevention — by combining intelligent data, clinical insight and wearable technology into tools that support safer, earlier and more consistent decision-making. Our flagship innovation is the AI-Guided Clinical Compression Assistant, designed to help non-specialist clinicians start safe, guideline-aligned compression therapy in under two minutes. This addresses a long-standing clinical need, where up to 80% of eligible patients never receive appropriate compression in primary care due to uncertainty and lack of confidence. By reducing this friction, we aim to improve healing outcomes while supporting more consistent utilisation of evidence-based therapy across venous, oedema and wound-care pathways. Alongside our clinical AI work, the Longlive platform supports preventative health and corporate wellbeing through intelligent insights derived from wearable data, personalised coaching, early risk detection and behaviour-change support. Our broader goal is to empower individuals and organisations with tools that promote healthier lives and reduce avoidable healthcare burden. We are guided by a simple principle: technology should enable better decisions — for clinicians, for patients, and for and for the health systems that serve them. If youre exploring advancements in clinical decision support, wound care innovation, preventative health or digital transformation, we’d love to connect.
Angel Investor
Dec 2022
We make and sell brain imaging systems showing neural activity called magnetoencephalographs (MEG). We democratize the use of MEG, using a space technology, to effectively detect brain defects and improve brain cares
Angel Investor
Jul 2022
Ramify réinvente la gestion de patrimoine en offrant aux particuliers laccès à des solutions dignes des plus grandes banques privées. Gestion pilotée, immobilier, private equity ou encore solutions d’épargne : notre approche allie expertise, diversification et innovation pour bâtir un avenir financier à la hauteur de vos ambitions.
Show all 14 entries ↓
Investment activity
2016–2024 · 10 investments
2016220201202122022420241
Recent (last 2 years)Earlier