Juergen Eckhardt, executive vice president and head at Leaps by Bayer, is one of the 100 leading corporate venturing professionals in our 2025 Powerlist.
“I am a medical doctor trained in radiology, and I also practised for a while. But I started to feel some frustration when, as practitioners, we were not able to provide patients with therapies that could restore their health. I wanted to explore career alternatives that would allow me to contribute to the development of disease-modifying therapies,” says Juergen Eckhardt, executive VP and head of Leaps by Bayer.
He then got an MBA, worked at McKinsey and in venture capital, before being approached by life science company Bayer a decade ago to launch its corporate investment arm, Leaps by Bayer.
“It got me really excited since there was high strategic intent behind the initiative. The idea was to invest in new technology platforms that had the potential to transform the way we do healthcare or agriculture.”
Since it was founded in 2015, Leaps by Bayer has built a portfolio of 65+ companies, with total capital invested exceeding $2bn.
“It is a buying opportunity for those who are in it for the long run. But it takes courage.”
One investment Eckhardt is particularly proud of is engineered cell therapy company BlueRock Therapeutics. It was his first investment on joining Leaps. “We convinced the academic founders to contribute their work and IP into a newco. We hired the team and the CEO, and I was on the board from the very beginning. Around three years later, Bayer decided this was a wonderful technology and acquired BlueRock.”
Eckhardt acknowledges that the venture world has faced a challenging five years, with raising capital becoming tougher each year. “We had more than 30 financing rounds in the portfolio last year, most of which were really hard work,” he says. But he believes there will eventually be light at the end of the tunnel.
“History tells us that the best vintage years are those when the world looked the bleakest. The investments being made today are in really differentiated and good technologies that you might not have considered otherwise. Valuations are also reasonable now. It is a buying opportunity for those who are in it for the long run. But it takes courage,” says Eckhardt.
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.
