The Vitalife venture capital fund has raised $178 million for a new biotech investment fund in conjunction with SCP Partners. Defense Minister and former prime minister Ehud Barak had been a partner in the SCP investment fund before returning to the cabinet.
The over-subscribed fund originally asked for $150 million, and will be named SCPVitalife. Vitalife, founded in 2002 by Discount Capital Markets and Dr. Avi Ludomirsky, has invested in 17 startups so far. Wayne Weisman of SCP and Jeff Dykan were the other two founders.
It has made four exits as of now: ColBar Life Science was sold to Johnson and Johnson for $159 million; CanFite Biopharma was issued on the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange; SightLine Technologies was sold to Stryker for $150 million; and BioControl sold a product line to AMS for $50 million.
 |
Advertisement |
|
The fund has also written off three of its investments. Among the investors in the new fund are the pension funds of the states of New York and Massachussetts, as well as Boston Scientific. Stryker is another investor. Dykan said the new fund's investment strategy will be similar to the first Vitalife fund: "We will continue to invest in medical technologies. In medical equipment companies, diagnostics and imaging companies, and biometric identification companies."
According to numbers from IVC-Online, SCPVitalife has already invested in three firms: Pocared Diagnosis, NiTi Surgical Solutions and Regentis Biomaterials.
"We are planning about 15-20 investments. We will be very involved in the companies. The reason the fund was enlarged is our plan to hold a higher percentage of the companies," said Dykan.
"It is easier for a specialist venuture capital fund, such as SCPVitalife, because that is what we do all day. We understand the sector and the market, and we obviously have connections with the large companies in the sector, the important doctors and hospitals," he explained.
"The partners in in our fund do not handle companies separately. All out partners know and are involved in the lives of every company in the fund," added Dykan.
There is a large presence of large technology companies in Israel alongside the development centers of many global corporations, explained Dykan. Technology entrepreneurs visit Israel from large firms and understand the technological and commercial side of high tech startups. "But that is not the situation with biotech companies, and therefore, we work with management and companies to help them make better decisions," said Dykan.
|
