Tag Archives: Biotech venture capital

Biotech feels like it’s got some wind in its sails here at the start of 2024, with positive sentiments from the JPM conference. Indeed, the public equity markets feeling somewhat buoyant for the first time in ages. With the close

The biotech IPO market in 2020 remains strong, despite the volatility and COVID headwinds. We’ve seen stellar pricings and good after-market performance, with ten new offerings already this year. And the queue for companies with active S1’s on file is

Venture capital is a long investment cycle business, and never before has that been so clear as now in the face of the ongoing COVID pandemic. Even with the unprecedented public equity market volatility, venture investing into private biopharma companies

The startup paradigm for the creation and funding of new biotech companies has evolved enormously over the past two decades. Recently there’s been a pair of articles from Tech VCs about applying alternative models of company creation (here, here) to

2018 was a gangbuster year for VC-funding into startups, reaching levels not seen since the height of the dot-com and genomics era. According to recent data from the NVCA/Pitchbook, VC across all sectors topped $130B invested across nearly 9000 deals

2018 has so far been another gangbuster year for biotech IPOs: the first three quarters of the year have delivered nearly 50 new biotech offerings, reinforcing the strong new issuance performance of the past 6 years. With lots of pundits

The flood of capital continues to pour into the private biotech ecosystem, marking the current climate as the most prolific period of investing into the sector of all time. The first three months of 2018 secured yet another “biggest quarter

As a biotech investor, it’s been fascinating to watch the Snapchat IPO and the fanfare around this $25B sensation following its offering as a “camera” company. As one of the big tech unicorns, it’s justifiably gotten considerable attention in the

Despite the volatility of biotech stocks in the public markets, the VC-backed private biotech ecosystem has been in remarkable equilibrium for much of the last decade. e·qui·lib·ri·um. noun.  a state in which opposing forces or influences are balanced. As I’ve noted

As larger Pharma externally-enables more of its pipelines, the cadence of biotech M&A appears to be accelerating, especially for early stage deals. Another week, another biotech acquisition in the news: Allergan has acquired two private and two public R&D-stage companies in just

Biotech and the overall equity markets have been under siege the past few months from macro forces, like oil and the economy, as well as sector-specific concerns like drug pricing. After watching the carnage in 2016 wreck havoc with small

Earlier this week Atlas Venture closed Fund X at $280M, completing our transition to a biotech-only venture firm. After announcing the split of our life science and technology franchises in October 2014 (here), we embarked on the hard work of

Biotech is definitely red-hot, and has been for the past eight quarters. Immuno-oncology, cancer metabolism, gene therapy, orphan diseases, NASH, autoimmune – there’s a broad range of disease settings that are capturing the excitement and imagination of investors today. With some

The ever-shrinking number of biotech venture capital firms was a common refrain during the 2008-2012 period; it’s true that a large number of firms went under, closed their doors for new investments, or moved into zombie status.  I wrote on

Return distributions in venture capital across different sectors have been a frequent source of commentary, and new data from Correlation Ventures provides further substrate for that theme. I’ve highlighted data from Correlation Ventures (CV) in the past, looking at top

As everyone in biotech knows, the last eighteen months have been an unprecedented time in the public capital markets.   2014 is on track to become the best year ever for life science IPOs, topping both 2013 and 2000.  Last week

Capital efficiency has become a mantra at Atlas, one shared by a number of other early stage biotech investors. It’s a term often repeated in discussions about building young companies, and yet it has become clear that there’s no consistent

So your biotech startup’s graduated to a Series A financing and your investors believe there’s nothing but champagne and robust clinical data in your future. Some classic analogies are applicable here; you’ve found a way off the island, you’ve defeated

Last week Y Combinator, the well-known and very successful technology startup incubator, announced that it was going to begin experimenting with biotech startups.  This announcement came as a surprise to many.  Several good posts on the subject appeared after a

With today’s announcement of Roche’s deal with Spero Therapeutics LLC (here), and last month’s news regarding Biogen’s deal with Ataxion (here), we’ve added further momentum to our strategy of working closely with larger BioPharma partners to create innovative “external R&D”

In light of the continued interest in biotech IPOs by the capital markets, there’s probably not a venture-backed biotech boardroom that hasn’t been discussing the merits of going public. Whether warranted or not, taking a company public via an IPO

As an early stage biotech investor, the future of the industry and its structure are clearly important things to think about – especially since most of the drug programs our new startups are working on won’t get launched, if they

Today Novartis announced its acquisition of CoStim Pharmaceuticals, a young biotech company focused on next generation approaches in the exciting immuno-oncology field (here).  Their oncology capabilities and commitment to anti-cancer immune mechanisms made them an ideal partner for us at

The biotech IPO bonanza appears to be continuing into 2014, with over thirteen offerings already this year.  We’re just now completing the busiest two week period in biotech IPOs ever.  Another dozen or so companies appear likely to price IPOs

The past year has certainly been the most exciting one for Biotech IPOs since 2000, with dozens of new offerings and compelling therapeutic narratives.  But focusing on these new IPOs misses an equal if not more exciting story: the significant

The broad underperformance of the venture capital asset class during the past decade is widely discussed; there’s a frequently-cited assertion that U.S. venture returns trailed the overall public equity stock market in the 2000s. Few if any published analyses have

As you might expect given the strong IPO market, biotech venture investors are doing less of the heavy lifting in support of their portfolio companies during this receptive climate than in the past few years. Biotech insider participation was the

Venture capital is often called an apprenticeship business in large part because experience matters and takes time to accumulate.  But successful firms are able to translate and transfer experiential wisdom through institutional memory, which involves codifying what works and what