Milla Koistinaho

Partner at Innovestor

Expert

Dr. Milla Koistinaho is a life science investor, scientist, entrepreneur, and Partner at Innovestor Life Science Fund, a Helsinki-based EUR 90 million venture capital fund investing in Seed to Series A stage health science companies across the Nordics. At Innovestor, she focuses particularly on therapeutics investments and oversees the fund’s therapeutics portfolio companies, supporting them with scientific and clinical strategy, pharmaceutical discovery and development, intellectual property, fundraising, partnering, and corporate transactions. Her investor perspective is strongly grounded in her own scientific background: she completed her PhD in Neurosciences in collaboration with Stanford University and Scios Inc., undertook postgraduate training at Eli Lilly and Company in the United States, and holds an Adjunct Professorship in Neurobiology at the University of Eastern Finland. As a researcher and biotech entrepreneur, she has co-founded three biotech start-ups based on her own academic discoveries and is a co-inventor on more than 30 patents. She has also held senior technology transfer roles at the University of Helsinki, where she helped identify, protect, license, and spin out companies based on academic research. Through more than 20 years of work across science, company creation, technology transfer, and venture capital, Dr. Koistinaho has developed deep expertise in translating cutting-edge biomedical science into investable companies and therapeutic innovations. She serves on boards of several Nordic biotechs and is the founding director of WiLD Finland, a network dedicated to advancing women into leadership roles in life sciences.