- Investment management firm Perceptive Advisors announced it closed its inaugural venture capital fund with $210 million in capital commitments
Investment management firm Perceptive Advisors announced it has closed its inaugural venture capital fund called the Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Fund, LP (the “PXV Fund”) — which is solely focused on investment in early-stage life science companies.
The PXV Fund was oversubscribed and closed with $210 million in commitments with a global investor base that includes prominent endowments, foundations, family offices, and institutional investors.
The PXV Fund complements the firm’s Life Sciences Master and Credit Opportunities Funds as it will be on early-stage venture capital and it expects to be the sole or predominant lead investor in Series A rounds in the range of $10-20 million with the capacity to participate in Series B rounds.
Portfolio Manager Chris Garabedian — who also serves as Chairman and CEO of Xontogeny — is leading the PXV Fund. Xontogeny is a Boston-based accelerator that provides seed investments plus it provides strategic and operational support to early-stage life science companies through its professional staff and network of consultants and service providers.
“Perceptive has one of the best and most consistent track records in assessing life science technologies and I’m excited to lead this new strategy with the PXV Fund to enable investments in early-stage development companies,” said Garabedian. “Our goal is simply to apply a more capital-efficient model of early drug development by actively managing a select number of the best opportunities with a focus on a successful and expedited path to compelling clinical proof-of-concept data – historically, a key driver of outsized returns. We are gratified by the trust and enthusiasm our broad base of limited partners has shown in this strategy and our goal of product-focused, data-driven, value creation.”
The PXV Fund is going to be focused exclusively on life sciences technologies across therapeutic areas with a greater emphasis on drug technologies and less focus on early drug and platform discovery. And the general goal of PXV Fund’s Series A financings will be advancing technology from a preclinical lead into or through early clinical development.
“We have known Chris for almost 10 years and he is one of the most skilled operators we’ve come across in the industry and is the best person to lead this strategy and new fund for Perceptive,” added Joe Edelman, Chief Executive Officer of Perceptive Advisors. “Chris is fully integrated with our team of analysts to help select the best investments, and his Xontogeny team provides a steady pipeline of opportunities for the fund through their sourcing, evaluation, and incubation of startups with seed financing and active operational management.”
The PXV Fund is going to benefit from the Xontogeny model and its ability to seed finance, incubate and de-risk early-stage technologies by providing proven operational expertise, more capital-efficient structure, and a strong partnership in advising and mentoring entrepreneurs and scientific founders.
And the Xontogeny team will assist emerging companies in successfully navigating the development pathway from lead preclinical asset to clinical proof of concept. Plus the PXV Fund also has the ability to invest directly in companies that have received previous seed financing or convertible equity and are more mature in their development and management team build-out but are seeking Series A financing.
