Synthetic Biologist
turned VC Investor, Keynote Speaker
and Fiction Writer
About
Background:
Dr. Elsa Solaris (Sotiriadis) is a Swiss-German former venture capital investor and scientist by background, who helped build and launch over two dozen life sciences startups to transform the food, health, and tech industries and her work was featured in media around the world. She is based in London and Berlin.
She speaks five languages, has lived in nine countries and holds a PhD in synthetic biology from Imperial College London and the University of Hong Kong, for which she won a merit-based research scholarship (awarded by Imperial College International Office).
In her spare time, she built a fast-growing keynote speaking and innovation consulting business with high-calibre clients from Europe to Middle East and China. She is an expert advisory committee member to the Word Health Organization on human genome editing and is recognized as one in 15 women in biotech to follow by Silicon Republic.
She took part in the BBC's award-winning eco-fiction show Forest 404, published speculative fiction at a London literary event and won an honorable mention at a writing competition in Hollywood, L.A. The original Amazon-bestselling novelette is currently under revision to be turned into a full-length novel.
During the pandemic, she doubled down on previous personal investments and has immersed herself deeply in the blockchain ecosystem and metaverse opportunities. She is currently launching a new branch to her futurism activities that involves digital art, like stunning futuristic designs, to help illustrate her message - made with an AI as in-house lead designer (Android Andy).
Elsa is also pursuing few long-standing writing projects - and learning Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu.