Prospect Venture Partners Closes $500M Fund

Prospect Venture Partners

PALO ALTO, Calif., July 30 /PRNewswire/ — Prospect Venture Partners, a venture capital firm dedicated to investing in medical technology and life science companies, today announced the closing of its second fund, Prospect Venture Partners II. The oversubscribed fund was closed at $500 million.

 

The fund’s four Managing Partners are Alex Barkas, Ph.D., Russell Hirsch, M.D., Ph.D., David Schnell, M.D. and Jim Tananbaum, M.D., who collectively bring over 30 years of previous venture capital experience to Prospect Venture Partners. The partners have strong investment track records, having led investments in over 45 health care and biomedical companies from 1992 to 2001. In addition, the partners have significant biomedical industry operating experience, successful entrepreneurial track records, and extensive biomedical research training from leading institutions including Harvard Medical School, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, UCSF Medical School and the Whitehead Institute/MIT.

 

The prior fund, Prospect Venture Partners I was a $100 million fund invested in a number of life science companies including Senomyx, Signature Biosciences, and Structural Genomix. [Prospect Venture Partners] was originally founded in 1997 by Barkas and Schnell.

 

“We are very pleased with the response that we have received from our Limited Partners in this fundraising process. We share the belief that the life sciences industry represents a target-rich investing environment,” said Managing Partner David Schnell, M.D. of Prospect Venture Partners. “The pace of innovation and the breadth of commercial opportunities in biomedicine is unprecedented, and we are very excited about the future.”

 

Prospect Venture Partners’ Managing Partners serve or have served on the following companies’ Boards of Directors: Advanced Medicine, Connetics Corporation, GelTex Pharmaceuticals, Geron Corporation, Healtheon, Intuitive Surgical, Microcide Pharmaceuticals, Neurocrine Biosciences, Signature Biosciences, Senomyx, Structural Genomix, and Sunesis Pharmaceuticals.

Prospect Bio Ventures