Devices & Diagnostics, Health IT, Pharma, Startups

VC firm Venrock goes after a $200M healthcare fund

Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners is looking to pull together a $200 million fund to invest […]

Venrock Healthcare Capital Partners is looking to pull together a $200 million fund to invest in life sciences and health IT companies, a newly filed regulatory document suggests.

This will be the second healthcare-specific fund that Venrock has raised; the first netted $194 million in 2009. Through other funds, the firm also backs technology companies (most famous in its alumni portfolio are Apple and Intel).

Venrock’s New York office couldn’t offer any comments on the new fund, but historically Venrock’s healthcare investments have leaned toward later-stage life science companies, including Illumina and Fate Therapeutics.

But its partners have done some earlier-stage deals as well. Venrock was one of the founding investors of biopharmaceutical company Ikaria Inc. back in 2005, and it joined in a giant $145 million Series A for cancer immunotherapy upstart Juno Therapeutics earlier this year.

Its health IT investments have included athenahealth and Castlight Health, which recently filed an IPO. The firm hired Bob Kocher, a physician and former special assistant to the president for healthcare and economic policy, to lead health IT investments in 2011.

Other healthcare VCs including 5AM Ventures, Founders Fund and Clarus Ventures have either closed on new funds or begun raising them in the past few months.

Venrock was started 45 years ago by the grandson of John D. Rockefeller as the investment business of the Rockefeller family, although it’s now open to outside investors.

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