The new year ushered in an influx of biotech-specific funds, including $700 million from Andreessen Horowitz (A16z).
The Silicon Valley-based venture capitalist announced $15 billion raised across its various areas of venture capital strategy, including $700 million split between “Organic and Health,” according to a January 9 article.
Venture capital aims to help foster and support American innovation in efforts to keep the country ahead of other countries, wrote Ben Horowitz, co-founder and general partner of A16z.
“As America’s leading venture capitalist, the fate of new technology in the United States rests partly on our shoulders,” Horowitz said. “Our mission is to ensure that America wins the next 100 years of technology.”
For A16z, this means investing in AI and cryptography and applying these technologies to other fields, such as biology and healthcare.
“If America fails to win technologically, it will lose economically, militarily, geopolitically, and culturally,” Horowitz wrote. “And the whole world will lose too. »
Meanwhile, German biopharmaceutical company BioNTech has teamed up with the University of Pennsylvania and venture capital firm Osage University Partners to create a $50 million fund for Pennsylvania companies called the Penn-BioNTech Innovative Therapeutics Seed Fund (PxB Fund).
The new venture capital money will be aimed at life sciences startups working to develop new therapeutic, diagnostic and research tools.
“Penn has a remarkable track record of building cutting-edge startups, with recent successes including Capstan Therapeutics, which was acquired by AbbVie, and Interius BioTherapeutics, acquired by Kite,” Marc Singer, OUP managing partner, said in a Jan. 9 statement.
“Through the PxB Fund and with access to BioNTech’s knowledge, we intend to invest in the next generation of Penn innovations to translate scientific advances into medicines that can improve patients’ lives,” Singer added.
While the A16z and PxB funds focus specifically on strengthening U.S.-based advances, private French pharmaceutical company Servier has created a new venture capital fund serving primarily European biotech.
Called Servier Ventures, the fund invested an initial €200 million (around $232 million) in oncology and neurology companies, two areas on which Servier has largely based its pipeline.
Investments will be made through minority stakes in companies, with initial investments targeted at European startups, although Servier has indicated it may expand to other regions in the future.
