Oregon Health and Science University (OHSU) is collaborating with Allegory Venture Partners to create a $100m fund. The money will be used for seed and follow-on funding in emerging health care and life sciences companies.
OHSU is paying Allegory $1.2m over the next two years to support the fund’s launch and operation. Allegory will be attempting to raise at least $40m during that initial period.
Allegory will be able to examine new technologies being researched at OHSU, and the university will disclose certain startup opportunities on a non-exclusive basis. Both Allegory and the fund will operate completely independently of OHSU. The university will receive a quarter of the distributions, but have no say in the investment strategy.
Allegory and the fund are making no promises to invest in OHSU spin-outs. Investments will be objective, and focus on companies involved in medical devices, health care IT and diagnostics, rather than companies going through lengthy clinical trials to develop compounds and vaccines.
The university is hoping the fund will lead to an era of bioscience growth in Oregon, and is focussed on establishing a locally headquartered venture capital fund. The aim is to increase collaboration with private industry and leverage resources.
Thomas DeSouza, partner at Allegory, said: “We don’t see a lot of institutional dollars around Oregon, which is why we end up losing a lot of companies. We would like to strategically build on that.”
