Successful deals in venture capital take on a life of their own, especially the rare massive outlier return.  Unfortunately for venture capitalists, Facebooks and Twitters are very rare. Understanding the nature of “winners” requires a good grounding in what a

Summer is gone and the hectic autumn schedule is upon us (despite hitting 96F in Boston on Wednesday): back to the routine of board meetings, SABs, conferences, diligence sessions, and a ramped up travel schedule. Importantly, this also means that

The Pharma R&D model is certainly suffering, and the industry’s pandemic sickness is best embodied by “Eroom’s law” of ever-decreasing R&D productivity. But it’s a lot easier to diagnose this disease than it is to prescribe a medicine. In fairness,

Getting deals done with Pharma is critical to the strategy of many Biotech companies.  Pharma deals often offer less dilutive funding to advance a program or portfolio, market validation enabling future traction, and potentially important liquidity for shareholders.  Given their

For the first time in over a decade, there’s real talk about an open IPO window for biotech companies.  The NVCA’s second quarter update highlighted that venture-backed biotech outpaced all other industry sectors in the number of IPOs and the

A couple years ago we unveiled a new startup called Nimbus Discovery LLC which was experimenting with a new model that combined three key elements: Schrodinger’s cutting edge in silico drug screening and design platform, a truly virtual and globally

Thiel’s law: A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed. Much like an organism, the “DNA” of a startup gets encoded at the outset – which genes or attributes will really matter going forward, and the possible deleterious (or

There are lots of myths about venture capital and biotech in particular, as noted previously on this blog.  Many of these myths are deeply held beliefs about returns, what works and what doesn’t, and the state of the industry.  Told

Today we announced a pair of Corporate Strategic Partnerships (CSPs) with Amgen and Novartis, as part of our closing of Fund IX, with the aim of working closely with them during our venture creation process of starting new biopharma companies. 

Biotech just takes too long, especially when compared to the overnight success of technology ventures, or so the oft-cited criticism of venture-backed biotech’s perceived longer holding period goes. Despite being a well-accepted belief  held by most venture professionals, LP’s, and

Last week, Atlas Venture closed Fund IX at $265M, as reported this morning by Dan Primack.  We set out to raise $250M, and closed above-target with great support from our existing LP’s and some great new ones.  With this closing,

Personalized medicine and diagnostics are undoubtedly critical to the delivery of better healthcare in the future: getting the right drug to the right patient at the right time.  In theory, these therapy-guiding diagnostics should reduce the cost of healthcare while