New Atlas Fund will Pump $450M Fund into Biotech
Atlas Venture successfully raised $450 million at the close of its thirteenth fundraising activity to support efforts to create and invest in new biotech firms that address many unmet patient needs.
Atlas Venture Fund XIII was built so that the venture capital firm could work alongside more entrepreneurs to create new companies. The parent company typically collaborates with experienced venture partners to found, seed, incubate and invest in biotech startups. The company has raised over $2 billion since 2015 and built and/or invested in more than 50 biotech firms. Fund XIII is the latest addition to its growing roster.
"Over the past two years, we have all experienced the tremendous benefits of investment in scientific and medical innovation. We are deeply appreciative of the ongoing support of our LPs, which enables us to continue our disciplined venture creation approach to building and scaling biotech companies advancing novel therapeutics for a wide range of serious diseases," commented Jason Rhodes, a partner at Atlas Venture.
Rhodes invested in Fund XIII alongside Bruce Booth, Kevin Bitterman, Michael Gladstone, Jean-François Formela and David Grayzel.
Aside from Fund XIII, the company uses its Atlas Venture Opportunity Fund II arm to invest in other companies. Atlas created the fund worth $300 million in 2021 to support companies that focus on advanced therapeutics programs. Prior to that, the firm raised $400 million to create Fund XII, $350 million to create Fund XI and $250 million to build Opportunity Fund I.
"The importance of advancing innovations in biotechnology has rarely felt more critical. We continue to be humbled by the support of the LP community, whose partnership has enabled us to continue our early stage seed-led venture creation model backed by strategic and disciplined fund sizes," Booth said in an earlier statement.
Atlas companies are designed to optimize their business and scientific potential through an airtight process that involves discovery, derisking, shaping and strengthening. Some of the biotech firms in its portfolio include Chroma Medicine (using epigenome to develop genomic therapies), Ikena Oncology (focusing patient-directed oncology treatments), Translate Bio (using RNA therapies for severe genetic diseases) and Dyne Therapeutics (therapies for serious muscle diseases). There are dozens more on the list.
In related news, several other companies received additional capital recently to fund their respective biotech research and development initiatives. Neurimmune will receive $700 million from AstraZeneca under a new partnership to develop, manufacture and commercialize a transthyretin amyloid cardiomyopathy (ATTR-CM_ drug), EyeBio raised $65 million from a Series A funding round, and Terray Therapeutics generated $60 million from Series A financing.