Tim Harkness Unchained Labs

I would consider investing in Tim Harkness’ Unchained Labs as it is a startup with a lead investor, a proven strategy and a serial entrepreneur behind the business.
Tim Harkness had worked in the life science tools industry for more than 15 years when decided to launch his own company. Two successful experiences are recorded in his career as he was first CFO in a small company and after became CEO in a bigger one. In both the situation Harkness worked in the life science tools industry and exploited the same strategy aiming at an inorganic growth. An inorganic growth strategy is when companies grow through acquisition rather than growing their core business. The inorganic strategy proved to be effective in this specific industry as both the companies where Harkness implemented it were sold at record values after some years. Now, the …show more content…
Harkness has an outstanding history of success in the industry, he knows what are the main competences required and has a clear idea on how to grow the company in the future, an idea that proved to be effective during the last fifteen years. Furthermore, Harkness showed his great leadership skills in the past as reported by his colleagues after he left ProteinSimple “He was the heart and soul of the organization”. The main weakness in this project is the product proposed, Optim. It is an asset that Harkness’ team followed for years, but it has some structural issues to bring it into the market. Moreover, it is not clear who will be part of the management team beside Harkness and if the board could replicate the capabilities and skills showed in the past. Therefore, the investors should bet on the effectiveness of the strategy and the leader’s experience. The major risk is that Harkness should find other similar products in the industry, acquire them at a competitive price, and grow them when others could not, otherwise the venture is going to be a