Freeflow Ventures, an early-stage venture capital (VC) firm that invests in science-driven solutions to human and planetary health challenges announced that it raised $50 million in new funds through its $35 million Fund Two and $15 million Opportunity Fund. Including a $25 million Fund One and $15 million in special purpose vehicles (SPVs), Freeflow now has $90 million in assets under management (AUM).
Despite a challenging market for venture capital, Freeflow doubled its fundraising from the Fund One to Fund Two cycle. And the firm announced its most recent investment into Catena Bio, its first into the Berkeley ecosystem of deep tech startups.
Freeflow started at California Institute of Technology (Caltech) in Pasadena, where the firm made over 30 investments since 2020 into companies founded by leading scientists, including Nobel Laureates Frances Arnold (Chemistry – 2018), David Baltimore (Physiology or Medicine – 1975) and Bob Grubbs (Chemistry – 2005).
Catena Bio is at the forefront of next-generation Antibody Drug Conjugate (ADC) technology with a novel conjugation that enables multiple payload capabilities for cancer treatment that can significantly improve patient outcomes. And CEO and cofounder Marco Lobba worked on the underlying Catena technology when he was a PhD student at UC Berkeley in the labs of Matt Francis, Professor and Emeritus Chair of the Department of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, and Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (2020) for co-inventing CRISPR (the gene-editing technology, and the Li Ka Shing Chancellor’s Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences and Professor of Molecular Therapeutics at UC Berkeley). And Catena is also a member of the Bakar BioEngenuity Hub at UC Berkeley.
KEY QUOTE:
“This new funding enables us to expand our model to Berkeley, an important addition to our operating model because it shares so many similarities to Caltech and JPL where amazing founders working on large-scale solutions to important problems continue to create high quality investment opportunities. These two communities align very nicely with our focused thesis on human and planetary health.”
- David Fleck, founder and managing partner, Freeflow Ventures
