Mission BioCapital, an investor in Mammoth Biosciences, Nitrase Therapeutics and others, has more than doubled its fourth fund with $275 million for its fifth pile of cash to bankroll new startups.
Along with the stockpile of fresh capital, Mission expanded its investment team to include 24-year Pfizer veteran and former Deciphera Pharmaceuticals CEO Michael Taylor, Ph.D., and Steve Tregay, Ph.D., the founding CEO of Forma Therapeutics. Taylor becomes operating partner, and Tregay steps into the co-managing partner post, Mission said Thursday.
With offices in two of biotech’s biggest incubator hubs—Cambridge, Massachusetts, and San Francisco—Mission aims to use the fifth fund to focus on creating new startups rather than simply investing in them. The investor will work with academic researchers and entrepreneurs to launch companies with new technology, the firm said.
The fund has already helped launch four companies: ARase Therapeutics, Arclight Therapeutics, Jupiter Bioventures and Telo Therapeutics. Overall, the fifth fund has gone toward seven companies thus far. The money will go to more early-stage biotech, diagnostic, medical device, lab tool and drug delivery startups.
Tregay has experience in the investing world as a former managing director at Novartis Venture Fund and head of strategic alliances for the Novartis Institutes for BioMedical Research.
Mission is the latest VC shop to unveil a life-sciences-focused fund. Frazier Healthcare Partners raised a whopping $830 million to invest in publicly traded life science companies, the firm said last week.
Sanofi-backed Jeito Capital closed a $630 million fund for 12 to 15 European biopharmas in September; Lightstone Ventures racked up a $375 million haul that month, too; and Moderna founder Flagship Pioneering reeled in a massive $2.2 billion for preemptive medicine in June.