New money is increasingly hard to come by for life sciences venture capital firms. Start-Up tracks VCs to determine which firms have older vintage funds and which have plenty of fresh capital to invest.
As Some VCs Run On Empty, Others Are Topping Off The Tank
Article preview from Start Up - July, 2010
As liquidity remains scarce and long-term returns from venture funds are at best proving lukewarm, some limited partners are losing confidence in the venture capital model. For biotech and health care-oriented venture, new money is increasingly hard to come by, with smaller commitments from pension funds, university endowments and other traditional suppliers of capital. ( See "Biotech Backers Are Learning to Live with Exit-by-Earn-out," START-UP , March 2010 [2010900061].) With increasing frequency, firms are capping their newest funds short of already-reduced expectations.
Among the latest to aim for a more modest fund is Polaris Venture Partners, which has raised the first $233 million of its proposed $400 million sixth fund, according to a document filed with the SEC the week of June 7. The goal is markedly less than the $1 billion Polaris Venture Partners V fund closed in March 2006 before the economic meltdown reconfigured the venture landscape and $100 million less than the firm was reportedly seeking this time around.
Elsevier's Strategic Transactions reveals no new Polaris investments in the biotech sector since June 2009, when it backed ocular bandage developer I-Therapeutix Inc. (now Ocular Therapeutix Inc.) and bladder drug-device maker Taris Biomedical Inc. [200930256] [200930279] The firm has committed follow-on capital to at least ten life sciences portfolio companies in the past year, and continues to make new investments in high-technology and clean-tech startups, including several housed in its Dogpatch Labs incubator.
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Companies mentioned in this article:
Ocular Therapeutix Inc
Taris Biomedical Inc.
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