Bay Area venture capital firm Versant Ventures has teamed up with Bayer HealthCare to create a new fund that invest in biotech and medical device companies that target unmet medical needs. Bayer’s contributing up to $25 million to Versant Venture Capital V, though it’s only one of several investors to make up the fund, the companies said in a release.
It wasn’t disclosed how large the fund will actually be, but that Versant will be the exclusive decision-maker when it comes to choosing which startups to fund.
Germany-based Bayer HealthCare and Versant have partnered since last year in opthalmology research: They both formed Inception Sciences, a drug discovery incubator to fuel early research in the retinal eye disease space. A number of companies were spun out of Inception Sciences – the Spartanly named Inception 1, Inception 2, Inception 3, Inception 4 and Inception 5 – and Bayer’s got exclusive rights to acquire that fourth one. The target and conditions remain undisclosed.
