The firm, which specialises in commercialising public and corporate research, has closed its largest fund to date.
Arch Venture Partners, a US-based venture capital firm with a focus on commercialising university research, closed its eleventh fund at $1.85bn yesterday to back biotechnology companies.
Fund XI will seek both to create and invest in early-stage companies across areas including infectious disease, mental health, immunology, oncology, neurology, manufacturing, clinical trials, anti-aging medicines, genomic and biological tools and data sciences.
The fund will also seek out new approaches around diagnostics and therapies. It is the firm’s largest vehicle to date.
Arch Venture Partners was founded in 1986 as wholly-owned commercialisation arm Argonne-Chicago (Arch) Development Corporation to drive the creation of spinouts based on research at University of Chicago (UChicago) and the affiliated Argonne National Laboratory.
The firm raised a first fund of $9m with the backing of UChicago in 1988 before it was spun out and rebranded to its current name in 1992. The formal relationship between Arch and UChicago came to an end when the university exited with the second fund.
Robert Nelsen, co-founder and managing director, said: “From its start, Arch sought out great science with the potential to significantly improve human health. While Fund XI is our largest to date, we have always invested at levels that each company or technology needed to advance, whether it is $50,000 or $250m.
“We are continually proud to help bring together and advise scientists and entrepreneurs to create successful enterprises.”
Arch also announced the promotion of venture partner Paul Berns to managing director, and the hiring of Jay Markowitz as senior partner. Carol Suh and Sean Kendall have been named principals, while Corey Ritter and Nilay Thakar have been promoted to senior associates.
The firm’s recent investments include spinouts such as Walden Biosciences, a US-based kidney disease treatment developer, Glympse Bio, a US-based disease management producer, and Autobahn Therapeutics, a US-based regenerative medicine developer.
