Action Potential Venture Capital invests in bioelectronic medicines, which treat diseases with electrical pulses instead of drugs.
UK pharmaceutical company GSK has reportedly separated from its corporate venture capital unit Action Potential Venture Capital in the latest move by a corporate to spin out its VC investment unit.
Endpoint News reported that GSK has offloaded the corporate venture capital unit, which invests in bioelectronic medicines, a new sector that focuses on developing methods to treat diseases using electrical pulses instead of drugs.
Action Potential Venture Capital, founded by GSK in 2013, invested in the $52m series B round for Alpheus Medical, a startup that develops treatments for aggressive brain tumours using non-invasive ultrasound technology, in May this year. It also invested in the $115m series D round for SetPoint Medical, a company that has invented a device-based therapeutic approach to the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis.
Recent rounds that Action Potential Venture Capital has participated in can be found in GCV’s CVC Funding Round Database.
Earlier this year, the co-founding partner of Action Potential Venture Capital, Imran Eba, left to take on the role of chief financial officer at Alpheus Medical.
GSK spun out another of its corporate VC units, SR One, in 2020. SR One and other limited partners are backing a new, separate entity from Action Potential Venture Capital, called Synapse Fund. Juan-Pablo Mas, who was managing director of Action Potential Venture Capital and a co-founding partner together with Eba, will lead Synapse Fund, according to Endpoint.
Other corporates that have spun out VC investment units this year include Google owner Alphabet, which spun out Gradient Ventures in October, and aircraft maker Boeing, which spun out its startup accelerator and investment programme Aerospace Xelerated.
See details of the corporate venture units at GSK and other leading corporations in the CVC Directory.
