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Fundraising

Top 10 biotech investors & VC firms

From 2019 to 2021, VC funds invested more than $52 billion in therapeutic-based biotech companies globally, but that number has dropped dramatically since — reaching a four-year low of $24 billion in 2023. Although investment volume has cooled down from pandemic highs, VCs continue to invest tens of billions every year in biotech startups. In such a competitive fundraising environment, it’s critical for biotech startup founders to reach out to the right investors to successfully raise funding.

As part of our going series of free fundraising resources and investor lists for founders, this article will explore the top 10 active VC firms and investors focused on biotech startups, with details on each firm’s investment focus, history and fund size.

1. RA Capital

RA Capital

RA Capital Management is an investment advisor based in Boston specializing in the life-sciences and drug development sectors. Their team has been investing since 2002 and is comprised of professionals with training in biology, chemistry, and medicine and also has industry and business development experience at the executive and board levels. They invest in companies with promising technologies and products. Their approach is to achieve a superior understanding of data, experimental/trial design, regulatory process, and commercial potential. When appropriate, they can offer their portfolio companies leads on in-licensing opportunities and strategic partnerships, as well as insight into the demands of the public markets.

  • Founded: 2001
  • Fund Size: $2B
  • Website: racap.com

2. Casdin Capital

Casdin Capital

Casdin Capital, LLC is a New York-based research investment firm focused on the innovations in molecular medicine currently reshaping Life Sciences and healthcare. Founded in 2011, and with an eye to long-term returns and disruptive technologies, Casdin Capital is an expert working with experts, benefiting from its position at the crossroads of the science and investment communities. As trusted investor-partners in both private and public companies, they collaborate with industry leaders to fuel their visions, adding energy, insight, and experience to over $2.4 billion under management. As they push into new markets and new developments, they have stuck to their core principles—deep analysis, intellectual honesty, hard work and partnerships with the best people. That approach translates to thousands of conversations with the developers of the drugs, diagnostics, tools and technologies that power this industry, and the data assets and service companies that support the research and product commercialization. In their first ten years, Casdin’s hands-on approach and on-the-ground experience led us to identify the key innovations that are spurring today’s remarkable industry growth. Today, Casdin remain just as focused.

3. OrbiMed

OrbiMed

OrbiMed is a healthcare-dedicated investment firm, with approximately $5 billion in assets under management. OrbiMed’s investment advisory business was founded in 1989 with a vision to invest across the spectrum of healthcare companies: from private start-ups to large multinational companies. OrbiMed manages the Caduceus Private Investments series of venture capital funds and a family of public equity investment funds.

4. Logos Capital

Logos Capital

Logos Capital is a fundamental biotechnology-focused fund that seeks to combine in-house data analytics with scientific and clinical expertise to identify transformative therapies in healthcare. Based in San Francisco, Logos combines expertise across medical, scientific, and statistical disciplines to expand the depth of diligence in identifyingcompelling investment ideas and uncorrelated-market returns. They combine scientific diligence with their statistical modeling of clinical trials to achieve the highest levels of conviction in each position.

5. Venrock

Venrock

Venrock supports passionate and ambitious entrepreneurs building disruptive companies in the technology and healthcare market. Venrock partners with entrepreneurs who want to tackle big, hard problems that most think not possible. For more information, please visit www.venrock.com or follow the firm on Twitter at @Venrock. Originally established as the venture capital arm of the Rockefeller family in 1969, Venrock partners with entrepreneurs to build some of the world’s most disruptive, successful companies. With a primary focus on technology and healthcare, portfolio companies have included Apple Computer, Athenahealth, Centocor, Check Point Software, DoubleClick, Endeca, Gilead Sciences, Idec Pharma, Imperva, Illumina, Intel, Millennium Pharma, Nest, SlideShare and Tudou. A complete list of Venrock investments is available at Venrock.com.

  • Founded: 1969
  • Fund Size: 4100000000
  • Website: venrock.com

6. F-Prime Capital

F-Prime Capital

F-Prime’s roots are in one of America’s great entrepreneurial success stories. Fidelity Investments was founded in 1946 and grew from a single mutual fund into one of the largest asset management firms in the world, with over $2 trillion in assets under management. For the last forty years, this venture capital group has had the privilege of backing other great entrepreneurs as they built ground-breaking companies in technology and life sciences, including Atari, MCI, ROLM Corp., Alibaba, Ironwood Pharmaceuticals, and Ultragenyx. Today, F-Prime’s funds are larger and more global, but its teams are still small and local. F-Prime stays true to its entrepreneurial roots. In the US and Europe, F-Prime Capital Partners is investing in healthcare (formerly Fidelity Biosciences) and in technology (formerly part of Devonshire Investors). In other geographies, its sister fund is called Eight Roads (formerly Fidelity Growth Partners), with investment teams in London, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Mumbai. Together F-Prime brings a world of insight, domain expertise and relationships to support entrepreneurs. Without the pressure of fundraising from outside investors, F-Prime Capital Partners focuses all of its time finding and helping great entrepreneurs build important companies.

7. Vivo Capital

Vivo Capital

Founded in 1996, Vivo Capital is a global investment firm focused on healthcare. Vivo has approximately $5.4 billion in assets under management, invested in over 250 public and private companies worldwide. The firm is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with additional offices in Asia. The Vivo team consists of more than 50 multi-disciplinary professionals, including, physicians, scientists, entrepreneurs, operating executives, and industry experts. Vivo provides a multi-fund investment platform, covering growth equity, private equity including buyout, venture capital, and public equity. Vivo invests broadly in healthcare across all fund strategies, including biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and healthcare services, with a focus on the largest healthcare markets.

8. Arch Venture Partners

Over 30 years, ARCH has backed disruptive science companies with as little as $50K to as much as hundreds of millions of dollars, per company. They are not interested in following the crowd. ARCH follows the science to found companies based on revolutionary technologies that can impact people’s lives. They take a long-term view when building companies. That’s why they are flexible in their approach and size their portfolio company investments as needed. Their extended network of partners helps us build companies through the formation stages and grow to their full potential.

9. Surveyor Capital – Citadel

Surveyor Capital - Citadel

Our ambition at Citadel is to be the most successful investment firm of all time. For more than three decades, Citadel has captured undiscovered market opportunities in markets around the world by empowering extraordinary people to pursue their best and boldest ideas. They strive to identify the highest and best uses of capital to generate superior long-term returns for the world’s preeminent public and private institutions.

10. Sofinnova Partners

Sofinnova Partners

Sofinnova Partners is a venture capital firm that invests in the life sciences sector, from seed to later-stage.The firm manages over €2 billion of assets dedicated to life science investing and actively partners with ambitious entrepreneurs as a lead or cornerstone investor to develop transformative innovations that have the potential to positively impact its collective future. It invests in start-ups, early-stage companies, corporate spin-offs, and occasionally turnaround situations with a focus on Life Sciences (Biopharmaceuticals / Biotech, Medical Devices, Industrial Biotechnology). Sofinnova Partners proactively sources deals, takes a lead role, is most often the first institutional investor in Round A financings, and leads its portfolio companies until exit. They sit on the boards of their portfolio companies and play an active role from the formation phase alongside entrepreneurs. It was headquartered in Paris, Ile-de-France in 1972.

Raising funding for your startup? Create the perfect biotech pitch deck:

Are you interested in learning how to write and design a winning pitch deck for your startup? You may be interested in our popular Biotech Pitch Deck template — designed by experts who have helped startups close millions in funding from top investors. Here are some other resources for founders in the education space:

Biotech Pitch Deck: expert-designed template for life science & pharma startups

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