A life sciences-focused venture capital firm is raising more than half a billion dollars for its latest fund.
In a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Chicago-based ARCH Venture Partners said it planned to raise $600 million for Fund X, it’s 10th fund. So far, none of the money has been raised, according to the Form D filing. The company’s previous fund, Fund IX, had initially set out to raise $400 million in March 2016. In a subsequent November 2016 SEC filing, ARCH said it had raised $408.4 million for Fund IX, its total offering having been raised to $550 million.
In response to a phone inquiry, a spokesperson for ARCH said the firm is in a quiet period and thus unable to comment.
With the pool of money it has on hand, ARCH has funded a variety of life sciences startups this year. Most recently, it co-led – with LS Polaris Innovation Fund – a $22 million Series A financing round of Glympse Bio, a Cambridge, Massachusetts-based company developing drugs for nonalcoholic steatohepatitis, or NASH. In January, it led a $100 million Series A round for San Diego-based immunology startup Gossamer Bio, also participating in a subsequent $230 million Series B round in July. Along with Illumina, it also co-led the 2016 Series A round of $100 million raised by next-generation sequencing Grail, subsequenting leading a $900 million Series B round last March. In May of this year, Grail raised a further $300 million in a Series C round, led by Chinese investors.
Several other life sciences venture capital firms have also boosted their funding this year. Earlier this month, Taiho Pharmaceuticals’ venture arm, Taiho Ventures, increased its investment pool from $50 million to $300 million, with a particular focus on funding companies developing cancer treatments. In June, Pfizer – which had cut 300 neuroscience research and development jobs in January – boosted its venture capital arm’s pool by $600 million, with $150 million of that devoted to funding drugs in development for neurological disorders. And in September, a new venture capital firm, Westlake Village BioPartners, was launched in the Los Angeles area. With Amgen veteran Sean Harper and life sciences investor Beth Seidenberg – joining from Silicon Valley venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins – at the helm, Westlake started with $320 million in funding.
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