A business bought for about $15 million, grown from seven locations to roughly 25, and sold less than four years later for $295 million gets your attention fast. But what made Sandy Paige’s MedStart fireside chat useful was not the headline number. It was the explanation behind it: recurring revenue, clean books, capital-efficient growth, and a relentless focus on people.

At MedStart, Paige walked through his path from helping build The Jackson Laboratory’s West Coast operation in Sacramento to acquiring and scaling Explora, and then shifting into investing. Along the way, he offered a practical view of what actually creates value in life sciences and what often gets founders in trouble. (Spoiler: it is usually not the science slide.)

1. Great businesses are often built by doing more of what already works

Paige explained that after about a decade at The Jackson Laboratory, he left to pursue a search fund. A search fund is a small pool of capital raised so one person can go find, buy, and run a single company. His version of that search moved quickly. Instead of a long hunt, he found a business in a familiar space almost immediately: Explora, a biotech services company built around contract vivariums.

That matters because it cuts against the usual startup mythology.

Paige’s story was not about inventing a brand-new category. It was about recognizing an operating model that already worked and scaling it intelligently. In his words, the beauty of this kind of business is that there is no R&D moonshot attached to it. You find a great business, then do more of that — in more locations, with more customers, and with disciplined execution.

Explora’s contract vivariums were essentially shared infrastructure for biotech companies: specialized animal research space divided into rentable rooms, leased for long periods. It was a simple idea with strong economics. For early-stage biotech companies, that meant access to critical infrastructure without having to build it themselves. For Explora, it meant recurring revenue and a scalable operating model.

2. Capital-efficient growth beats flashy growth

One of the most interesting parts of the conversation was Paige’s explanation of how Explora scaled so quickly without burning through traditional debt or equity the way many companies do. He described how vivarium space is expensive to build — far more expensive than normal office space — but how Explora used landlord tenant-improvement dollars as a growth engine. In plain English: they convinced landlords to fund a large part of the build-out because the vivarium became a valuable amenity for a life sciences building.

That turned real estate into a strategic financing tool.

Instead of loading the company up with bank debt, Explora used lease structures to support expansion. Paige said that while they bought the business with about $10 million of equity, they were able to unlock roughly $100 million of growth capital through the leasing process. That is a founder lesson worth underlining. Growth is not just about raising money. It is about understanding where non-dilutive or more efficient capital can come from.

My suggestion is simple: founders should spend less time asking, “How do I raise more?” and more time asking, “What structure makes this business cheaper and easier to scale?” That is a much better question.

3. Investors still bet on people first

Paige was clear on this point, and he repeated it more than once: the first thing, second thing, and third thing he looks at is the leader. In search investing, he said, you are betting on a person before you are betting on a business. That may sound obvious, but it is a useful reminder in a startup world that sometimes overweights decks, narratives, and buzzwords.

He also outlined the kinds of businesses that tend to fit the search model: profitable companies, growing companies, recurring revenue, and generally capital-light operations. But even then, the leader matters most. A mediocre leader can ruin a good opportunity. A strong leader, supported by the right board and investors, can manage the negatives and expand the positives.

For founders, there is a parallel lesson here. Investors are not only evaluating your product. They are evaluating whether you can recruit, decide, adapt, and lead under pressure. That sounds harsh, but it is also encouraging. Leadership is something founders can improve. Not every advantage is fixed on day one.

4. In life sciences, “picks and shovels” can be a very smart lane

Paige noted that his current investing is less about therapeutic invention and more about the “picks and axes” side of biotech and pharma services — the businesses that support the ecosystem rather than trying to become the next drug company. He mentioned examples like CRO services and technical staffing for clinical trials. These are not always glamorous businesses, but they can be durable, understandable, and highly valuable when well run.

That lens also showed up in his discussion of fractional infrastructure. Fractional infrastructure is just a fancy term for breaking expensive assets into rentable pieces. Explora did it with vivariums. Wet lab operators do it with lab space. Paige even compared the model to cloud kitchens: different industry, same economic logic. Rent instead of build. Lease instead of buy. Preserve capital until the business truly earns the right to expand.

For MedStart founders, this is a big takeaway. Not every opportunity in life sciences has to be a therapeutic bet. Some of the best businesses are the ones that make the rest of the ecosystem work.

5. Sacramento has promise, but talent density still matters

When the conversation turned to Sacramento’s biotech ecosystem, Paige was candid. He said building here is hard for the same reason it is hard to build outside the major biotech hubs: talent density. The best clusters still pull people toward places like South San Francisco, Torrey Pines, and Kendall Square. Sacramento has strong people and real assets, but it does not yet have the same depth of specialized talent at scale.

That does not mean founders should give up on the region. It means they need to be clear-eyed.

Paige’s advice for early-stage medical and life science companies was direct: success and failure usually come down to people. Attract the best people you can as early as you can afford to. In Sacramento, that may mean using hybrid and remote work where possible. In wet lab-heavy businesses, that becomes harder, but the underlying point remains the same: a strong team is still the biggest differentiator.

There was also a broader regional point worth keeping. Building a startup ecosystem is a long game. In the audience discussion, the conversation touched on the idea that startup communities are built over decades, not quarters. Sacramento may get there, but it will likely take repeated wins, more founder spinouts, and more capital recycled back into the region. That is how clusters are built. Slowly, then all at once.

The takeaway

Sandy Paige’s story is a useful reminder that value creation in life sciences is not always about invention. Often, it is about disciplined execution, efficient capital use, recurring revenue, and building the right team around a clear model.

For founders, the lesson is straightforward: make sure you understand the business model as deeply as the science. And for regions like Sacramento, the path forward is equally clear, even if it is not easy: build talent, support infrastructure, celebrate wins, and keep showing up for the long game.

About Sandy Paige

Sandy Paige is the co-Managing Director of Seabright Ventures Fund, a small family office that specializes in search funds, pharma/biotech services, -aaS conversions, fractional infrastructure, clean technology, and other curious long-term investment opportunities.

In particular, Paige’s recent experience makes him an industry leader in fractional infrastructure businesses (Explora Biolabs, Colony Kitchens, others), often portrayed as -aaS industries/sectors other than software.

With an MBA from Babson College and over 15 years of experience in multi-industry business strategy, operations, and business development, Paige has a proven track record of finding, acquiring, running and growing companies in the lower middle market.

Through his Traditional Search Fund, Seabright Fund, Paige led the sourcing, 2018 acquisition, growth and 2022 exit from Explora BioLabs, the dominant provider of Vivarium-as-a-Service (VaaS) in the US at the time. As the CEO of Explora, Paige oversaw the expansion of its pre-clinical vivarium facilities and regulatory services to major biotech R&D hubs from 7 to more than 25 de novo locations, as well as the development of its pre-clinical contract research offerings. Explora was acquired by Charles River Laboratories in 2022.

Paige also has extensive experience in international sales and distribution, having served as the Director of International Sales & Distribution at The Jackson Laboratory, the world's leading provider of genetically engineered mice and clinical research services.

Paige is a current board member of Colony Kitchens (KaaS), RDI, Xiltrix, Caliber Companies, and NCPIC.

Previous roles included operating leadership stints as General Manager of Knight Celotex (Lisbon Falls, ME), VP of Administration at Neptune RTS (Fairfield, CT), and Personal Assistant to Governor Angus King (I-ME).

How Sandy Paige Turned a $15M Acquisition Into a $295M Exit