Finance Watch: Atlas Raises $450m Venture Fund For Biotech Breakthroughs

Atlas Venture added more fuel to its biotechnology start-up engine with a $450m fund announced on 3 March, which the venture capital firm will invest in new companies developing novel therapeutics and building innovative drug discovery and development platforms across a wide variety of diseases. The cash infusion for emerging firms comes despite a pullback in public markets that has made it more difficult for growth-stage biotechs to raise cash.

Atlas’s Fund XIII was oversubscribed and exceeds the firm’s twelfth fund, which closed with $400m in June 2020. (Also see "Finance Watch: New Funding Available For Antibacterials, Start-Ups" - Scrip, 8 June, 2020.) With the new fund, Atlas has raised more than $2bn since 2015 and has created or invested in more than 50 companies during that time. The firm also continues to reinvest in its prior start-ups after closing the $300m Opportunity Fund II in September to support portfolio companies as they grow