Osage University Partners, a Philadelphia-area venture firm that only invests in tech transfer spinouts, just closed its second fund – valued at $215 million.
About half of that funding will likely go towards life sciences companies – particularly in the therapeutics space, said managing partner William Harrington. Cancer, GI and cardiovascular drugs are the most interesting to Osage, he said, though the firm’s interested in diversifying its holdings. Most of the other investment will be made in tech companies.
The venture fund exclusively invests in startups that commercialize university research. Here’s a list of the partner universities. Osage tends to invest between $5 million and $7 million in its startups, and traditionally works in syndicates.
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“We work through the tech transfer office, so pretty much any company that’s a candidate for us to invest in would have to spin out of a partner university,” Harrington said. “But if it’s a partner institution, we likely know about it already.”
Companies that have licensed from other universities can reach out to Osage, however – the firm wants to increase the number of tech transfer offices it works with. It’s built out partnerships with about 70 universities, and hopes to increase that to about 100 in the lifecycle of this new fund.
It recently wrapped up its first, $100 million fund, which invested in 39 companies. Osage intends to target 40 to 50 new companies with this latest, oversubscribed fund, Harrington said.
“It’s a very different model – the deal flow and the deals we invest in come through proprietary and contractual relationships with universities,” Harrington said. “We tend to be more diversified than your typical venture in fund – our investments are smaller in size, but we do more of them.”
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[PHOTO: Lending Memo]
