April’s First Monday had a clear theme — Series B scale isn’t just about raising more money; it’s about proving you can turn a bold thesis into a platform that holds up under real-world pressure. In biotech, that pressure is even sharper: wet labs are expensive, slow, and capacity-limited. The edge goes to teams who can take more shots on goal—at higher confidence—before time and budget disappear.

We hosted a fireside chat with Szabolcs Nagy (CEO, Turbine) moderated by Mary Alcantara (Partner, Interactive Venture Partners) to unpack one of the most exciting Hungarian biotech scale stories in recent memory. Turbine had just closed a $25M Series B, led by Interactive Venture Partners, with participation from Beiersdorf Venture Capital and continued support from MSD Global Health Innovation, Accel, and Mercia—but the conversation went well beyond the headline.

At the center was Turbine’s Virtual Lab: a no-code platform that enabled pharma teams to run AI-powered, virtual biological experiments—pressure-testing ideas earlier, learning faster, and making better calls before committing to the wet lab. The traction story extended beyond the round as well: Turbine also announced a new immunology partnership with a Top 10 pharma company, expanding its reach beyond oncology into a broader set of therapeutic areas.

Together, Szabolcs and Mary took us behind the scenes on what it takes to win Series B conviction, how investors assess frontier platforms at scale, and what comes next as computation continues to reshape biology.