Welcome to our 2024 Impact Report – a look at what our portfolio companies have done to move the needle. This year’s edition highlights the grit, progress and potential of impact startups in a world that feels anything but predictable. It’s a snapshot of where we are, what we’ve learned, and why we believe the case for impact has never been stronger.
Bringing a new treatment to market takes more than ten years and costs over a billion euros. But behind those numbers lies something even more urgent: the human cost of delay – patients waiting for life-saving treatments that can’t come soon enough.
At Norrsken VC, we back founders tackling the world’s biggest problems with bold ideas and breakthrough technology. That’s why we’re proud to invest in Biorce, the Barcelona-based healthtech startup using AI to revolutionise clinical trials and bring new treatments to patients faster.
The Problem
Clinical trials are critical for developing new treatments, but the industry faces chronic delays. Around 70% of trials are delayed before they even begin, and nearly 60% face costly amendments along the way. Each amendment adds months to timelines and racks up between $250,000 and $450,000 in direct costs. For big pharma running hundreds of trials a year, the financial stakes are enormous. But the real cost is human – every delay slows down access to treatments that could save lives.
Many of these setbacks come down to poorly designed protocols, miscommunications at trial sites, and avoidable operational errors. It’s a system ripe for disruption.
For Pedro Coelho, Biorce’s founder and CEO, this is personal.
“We’re tackling the root causes of delay and inefficiency in clinical trials: issues that cost time, money, and ultimately lives. Our solution cuts through complexity, shortens timelines, and improves outcomes for patients. When my father was diagnosed with cancer, we were lucky to find a clinical trial that extended his life by ten months, but that kind of access is far from the norm. Our goal is to make clinical trials faster and cheaper so that we can get those opportunities to all patients and not just those lucky enough to join a trial.”
The Solution
Biorce is rewriting the playbook on how clinical trials are designed and run. Their AI-native platform, Jarvis, simplifies the process from end to end – optimising everything from patient recruitment to protocol design and trial site selection. By drawing insights from more than 530,000 clinical studies, Biorce helps trial teams make smarter decisions early, avoiding costly detours later.
The result is less wasted time, fewer expensive mistakes, and up to 50% faster time-to-market for new therapies. And most importantly, faster access to life-saving treatments for patients who can’t afford to wait.
The Investment
Biorce raised €3.5 million in November 2024, in a seed round led by YZR Capital and Mustard Seed Maze. Just seven months later, we’re investing €5 million round to fuel their next stage of growth: expanding into the US, scaling their engineering and sales teams, accelerating product development, and driving revenue towards eight-digit figures.
Tove Larsson, General Partner at Norrsken VC:
“Biorce is exactly the kind of pioneering company we’re here to back. They’re combining deep sector expertise with cutting-edge AI to solve what truly matters. Their platform has the potential to radically reduce both the time and cost of bringing new treatments to market, unlocking huge value for pharma and, more importantly, faster access to life-saving therapies for patients.”
At Norrsken VC, we believe innovation should be measured not just in returns, but in lives changed. Biorce is doing both: unlocking massive cost savings for a clinical trials market set to reach $150 billion, while accelerating the delivery of treatments that save and extend lives.
We’re proud to partner with Pedro, Clara, Diogo, Jose, and the entire Biorce team as they accelerate access to life-saving treatments.
