Early stage investing and medical technology innovation just got a boost, which is welcome news to healthcare entrepreneurs.
Flagship Ventures, a Cambridge, Massachusetts venture capital company aimed at healthcare and green companies, announced Wednesday that it has closed a new $270 million fund, raking in $20 million more than it had expected from existing and new investors.
“Despite the difficult environment for fundraising, especially for early stage venture firms, we received strong support from our prior investors, as well as from several new important limited partners,” said Noubar Afeyan, Flagship’s managing partner and chief executive officer, in a news release.
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This is the largest fund the VC firm has raised, coming on the heels of a $235 million fund raised in 2007. And the closing of Flagship Venture Fund IV brings the total amount of early stage capital under management to $900 million.
The company has invested in 65 firms since its founding in 2000, with 25 emerging from Flagship’s own incubator. But the $270 million is not only for early stage firms. This time around, the fund will dedicate a portion to later-stage healthcare and sustainable companies who are looking for money but have found it difficult in the current cash-crunched environment.
In healthcare, Flagship invests in a range of companies, including medical devices, biotherapeutics and pharmaceuticals.
Several of Flagship’s portfolio companies have either been acquired or taken public. They include Accuri Cytometers, which makes personal flow cytometers for researchers and was acquired by BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) in February of 2011; Aveo Pharmaceuticals, a biotech company that develops cancer therapies, which went public in 2010; and Adneux Therapeutics, a protein engineering firm, which was acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb in 2007.
