Jeffery Smith, director of equity and venture capital at Bristol Myers Squibb, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist.

Jeffery Smith brings a combination of science and investment banking background to his role as director of equity and venture capital at Bristol Myers Squibb.
A scientist by training, prior to joining the US-headquartered biopharmaceuticals company in early 2021, Smith was managing director for healthcare investment banking at investment bank Roth Capital Partners, before which he served for more than five years as vice president for investment banking at H.C. Wainwright.
Bristol Myers Squibb has set a fast pace for investments over the past few years. The company has made 74 investments to date, according to CB Insights and backed 15 startups in 2024 alone, according to GCV’s records. Bristol Myers Squibb emphasises partnering with the startups it invests in, including research collaborations and licencing agreements.
Recent investments for the company include a $92m series B follow-on round for pharmaceutical company Be Biopharma, as well as rounds for small molecule drug discovery company Light Horse Therapeutics, immune system drug company Nuvig Therapeutics, cancer drug developer Akits Oncology, and gene-editing technology developer Prime Medicine.
Other companies it has invested in include ArsenalBio, which develops t-cell therapies to fight solid tumours, as well as Abata Therapeutics, which also uses t-cell therapy to fight auto-immune diseases, oncology biologics developer Torl BioTherapeutics, immunotherapy technology developer Outpace Bio, and Ceptur Therapeutics, a startup that is developing targeted oligonucleotide therapeutics.
It has also seen big exits in recent years, including gene-editing startup Metagenomi, which went public in a $93m IPO in February 2024.
In addition to VC-style equity investing, Bristol Myers Squibb collaborates extensively with external partners, such as universities on research.
Smith holds a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from the University of Iowa, as well as a PhD in cancer biology from the Gerstner Sloan Kettering Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences in New York.

The Global Corporate Venturing Powerlist represents the 100 individuals spearheading the future of the corporate venturing industry.
These individuals excel in terms of their venturing approach and structure, number and quality of portfolio companies and in their contributions to the corporate venturing profession.