Perceptive Advisors, a hedge fund firm focused on life sciences, has raised its first venture capital pool in a bid to profit from startups in biotechnology.
The firm said Tuesday that its Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund attracted $210 million from endowments, foundations, family offices, and other institutional investors to lead early-stage deals in life sciences. The new pool expects to lead first-round financings of $10 million to $20 million to help companies move their products and technologies into, or through, early clinical development.
“Our goal is simply to apply a more capital-efficient model of early drug development by actively managing a select number of the best opportunities with a focus on a successful and expedited path to compelling clinical proof-of-concept data,” Chris Garabedian, portfolio manager of Perceptive’s venture fund, said in the firm’s statement. He said the PXV pool aims to create value through a venture capital strategy that’s “product-focused” and “data-driven.”
Garabedian also serves as chairman and chief executive of Xontogeny, a Boston-based accelerator that seeds life science companies. His experience at the group, which provides operational support to such startups through a network of consultants and service providers, will benefit the new PXV fund, according to Perceptive.
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“Chris is fully integrated with our team of analysts to help select the best investments,” Joseph Edelman, CEO of Perceptive, said in the statement. “His Xontogeny team provides a steady pipeline of opportunities for the fund through their sourcing, evaluation, and incubation of startups with seed financing and active operational management.”
The PXV fund may also invest directly in companies that have already obtained seed funding or convertible equity, but are still seeking their first institutional round of series A financing, according to the statement. The new VC pool could also invest in subsequent series B financings.
