Investments
Overview
We support innovative biotechnology startups at the earliest stages. Our investment scope focuses on life sciences companies with platform technologies and infrastructure solutions. We believe that there is significant opportunity for our syndicate to make a considerable and durable impact on societal progress by investing in early-stage biotech startups. Moreover, we care about supporting brilliant and kind founders that can advance mankind and build fantastic work cultures.
Deal flow
We have an extensive network of biotech entrepreneurs and inventors. This stems from our connections in and surrounding the Stanford community, as well as clientele from our separate business of strategy and diligence consulting. We also organize biotech venture meetups across the SF Bay Area. These are well attended by students, founders, and investors, and usually food and drinks are sponsored by top biotech VCs and companies. This community building effort generates considerable deal flow in that even other investors seek out to be part of the community. Most importantly, we are well known to be founder-friendly stakeholders in the biotech community. We have a strong reputation of being extraordinarily helpful, engaged, and caring. This attracts many founders to seek us out, whether for consultation or fundraising support.
Portfolio
We share a selection of portfolio companies and related news:
Generative AI applied to DNA-encoded combinatorial libraries for drug discovery
$30M series A financing led by Catalio Capital Management with participation from Lux Capital, Khosla Ventures, Obvious Ventures, Air Street Capital, Menlo Ventures, and others
Partnership with Nimbus Therapeutics to discover small molecule drugs for multiple indications and challenging targets
Bayesian optimization applied to next-generation antibodies for drug discovery
$75M series B financing led by Section 32 with participation from Amgen Ventures, Bristol Myers Squibb, a16z, 8VC, AME Cloud Ventures, Quadrille Capital, and others
Partnership with Merck to design and optimize multiple therapeutic biologics
Partnership with AbbVie to discover drugs in oncology and neuroscience for $30M upfront and $325M milestones payments
Data storage, access, and compute using nucleic acids
Universal vaccines to elicit broadly-neutralizing antibodies to eradicate infectious diseases
$10M seed financing led by NFX and GHIC
CMO appointment of Jerald Sadoff, who has more than 50 years of experience in vaccine development and was involved with the regulatory approval of 14 vaccines
Generative AI applied to designing functional proteins
General Proximity (formerly Weatherwax Biotechnologies)
Next-generation of induced-proximity medicine
Data analysis and storage infrastructure for biologists
$28M series A financing led by Coatue and Lux Capital with participation from Hummingbird Ventures, Caffeinated Capital, Haystack, and Fifty Years
Computer vision for automating laboratory experiments
Computational genomics engine for identifying mechanisms-of-action
$11M seed financing led by HOF Capital and ZhenFund with participation from Obvious Ventures, Village Global, BrightEdge, Pebblebed, Axial, Olive Capital, and others
CSO promotion of Claudio Chuaqui, who has more than 20 years of experience in drug discovery and co-inventor of Tagrisso (osimertinib)
Ergo Bio Community Investments LP is an investment syndicate focused on supporting early-stage biotech startups. We pool capital and collectively invest on a deal-by-deal basis. We negotiate with founders to secure allocations in their startups. Ergo Bio LLC is an independent strategic advisor for biotech investors and startups. We consult on a non-exclusive basis and advise multiple stakeholders across the biotech ecosystem. We also source investment opportunities for select funds. Ergo Bio Community Investments LP (investment syndicate) and Ergo Bio LLC (independent strategic advisor) are separate and distinct entities.