Marco Dotto, MSc

Marco Dotto, MSc is a Serial Entrepreneur, VC investor, Business Angel, and Consultant in Genomics, Life Sciences, and Longevity, focused on disruptive technologies with social impact goals. He is the CEO and Cofounder of Biodiversa, DNA Consulting, and Cofounder of Personal Genomics.

His personal and professional mission is to transform patients’ lives by making disruptive and transformative technologies accessible at a global scale. He worked on this mission as a startup and scale-up entrepreneur and CEO, as a consultant for small and large US and EU companies, and as a VC and business angel getting experience on both the investor and entrepreneur side.

His genomics companies manage hundreds of clinical research and diagnostics projects in oncology, immunology, genetics, rare diseases and virology with hundreds of publications in top impact factor scientific journals. Marco has managed strategic partnerships globally connecting investors, talents, researchers, technologies and business experts and is focused on the tech scouting and scale up of the latest innovations to be the catalyst for impactful and exponential improvements that could reshape healthcare globally.

His company Biodiversa is a leading provider of end to end Next Generation Sequencing services and Bioinformatics services since it was founded in 2014 by a group of partners and professors of the University of Verona and Bologna with a passion for scientific research, coming from different disciplines: medicine, genetics, biology, biotechnology, chemistry, physics. Marco was the Cofounder and has been the CEO since 2016.

Marco also founded a syndicate of investors focused on longevity biotech and is the Scientific Board Member at the Open BioMedical Initiative, a supplements global initiative supporting the traditional biomedical world and helping people better understand supplementation and selection of particular supplements.

In 2022, Marco became Limited Partner at Unruly Capital, a pre-seed and seed VC fund dedicated to invest in disruptive technologies, such as Climate Tech, FoodTech, Agriculture, Construction, Space, Synthetic Biology, New materials, Artificial Intelligence, MedTech and Longevity: Drug discovery, Genetic engineering, Biotech, Decentralization of Food & Energy production, 3D Printing, and Recycling.

He is also Limited Partner of Eden Ventures and Moonstone Venture Capital and Investor in Nurture Genomics, SiZable Energy, and Italian Angels for Growth.

Nurture Genomics is the first clinical care platform to empower parents and pediatricians with proactive genomic insights for newborns and children. Bringing whole genome sequencing to newborns to help guide care and decision making for families.

SiZable Energy is developing an innovative, low-cost, highly efficient, scalable energy storage solution based on an offshore pumped-hydro storage system; a storage solution that is cheaper than batteries, less carbon-intensive, and effortlessly integrated with floating offshore wind farms.

Marco managed the global scouting of startups and the strategic partnerships for Angelini Ventures, the Corporate Venture Capital fund of Angelini Industries, with 300 million euros of AUM investing in disruptive digital health and life sciences startups.

Marco has managed the start-up, scale-up and exit of several companies that have leveraged disruptive technologies to improve patients’ health. Besides Biodiversa, he managed Personal Genomics (acquired by the multinational company SOL S.p.A), Sorgente Oncologia, and DNA Consulting.

In 2017, he cofounded DNA Consulting and is the CEO. They provide consulting services for companies in Healthcare, Genomics, and Venture Investments.

Marco was Partner and CEO of Personal Genomics between 2013 and 2016. They are a leading company providing diagnostic and clinical research services focused on genomics, molecular biology, next generation sequencing, and bioinformatics. Under his management, it was the first company in Italy providing whole genome sequencing and genomic interpretation for rare disease diagnostics (coupled with bioinformatics and clinical geneticist board for interpretation) to help patients affected by unknown genetic diseases to end their diagnostic odyssey. They also provide direct-to-consumer personalized genomics analysis based on WGS and WES and multi-omics and liquid biopsy analyses for personalized cancer therapy to the Italian market.

Personal Genomics brought to Italy the first Non Invasive Prenatal Test based on circulating cell-free fetal DNA sequencing, a technique that then became the gold standard for prenatal aneuploidy screening globally.

Personal Genomics has been involved in hundreds of research and clinical research projects processing tens of thousands of samples including the biggest genomics project in Italy focused on aging where hundreds of centenarians and ultra-centenarians have had their whole genome sequenced. It has been granted several national and EU grants for clinical research projects.

Between 2016 and 2019, Marco was Cofounder and CEO of Sorgente Oncologia and Business development manager of Sorgente Group, bringing genomics to cancer patients for personalized medicine and care.

Marco earned his Master’s Degree of Science in Biotechnology at UC San Diego in 2008, where he received the Provost’s Honor of the Faculty of Bioengineering – Biotechnology of the Jacobs School of Engineering and the Rady School of Management at the same UCSD. He earned his Master’s Degree of Science in Industrial Biotechnology, Functional Genomics and Proteomics in 2009 and Bachelor’s Degree of Science in Biotechnology in 2007, both from the Unversita degli Studi di Padova.

Marco also earned his MABIT: Masters in Management from the CUOA foundation, a renowned Business School in Vicenza in 2010, when he was selected for a one year scholarship award to study for a Master’s in management specific for the Biotech sector.

He then became head of Business and Service development at BMR Genomics, between 2009 and 2013, and was a NGS and genomics services sales specialist. BMR Genomics is the biggest DNA sequencing service provider in Italy.

Marco was the technology specialist for the Next Generation Sequencing department and business developer of the genomics’ division. He developed an innovative DNA sequencing service that introduces the Next Generation DNA sequencing technologies into the personal genomics mass market for the first time. The service is focused on the identification of genetic disease causing mutations through high throughput DNA sequencing.

While at BMR Genomics, Marco taught Innovation Management as a contract Professor at the University of Padua in the Faculty of International Economics. He taught the “Complex Innovation Systems” English course (2011) and the “Innovation Management” course (2012) for the postgraduate students of the Department of International Economics at the University of Padova.

Visit his LinkedIn profile and his Crunchbase page. Follow him on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.