Foundation Fighting Blindness

The Foundation Fighting Blindness is a foundation founded in 1971 and headquartered in Colombia Maryland. The foundation typically makes allocations to companies in the range of $1-$8 million and is capable of providing $1-$15 over the investments lifetime. The firm does not look to take an equity position in companies but they do look for an ROI to return capital to the fund upon commercialization of the technology or change in ownership. The firm primarily funds companies located in the United States but will consider opportunities located globally as well. The firm provides equity capital and does look for a return though percentages taken are generally less than more financially motivated investors and all profits are reinvested back into the fund. Ideally the firm would like to allocate to 3-4 companies over the next 6-9 months.
Investor Type
Medtech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Capital Structure Preference
Investment Stage Preference
Tom Capetan
Business Development 

Golden Seeds

Golden Seeds is an investment group that was founded in 25 and is headquartered in New York with other offices in Boston Silicon Valley and Texas. The group currently invests out of the Golden Seeds angel network and the Golden Seeds venture funds. The group has managed 3 venture funds that are Golden Seeds Fund LP Golden Seeds Fund 2 LP and Innovate New York LP Fund. The Golden Seeds angel network has 32 members of which 1 are life science investors. Golden Seeds invests in companies with a female founder or CEO or with women in other C-level positions or with at least 1% of equity owned by women. Golden Seeds prefers to invest in companies with a valuation under $5 million, the group?s first-round equity investments generally range from $ .25 million to $2 million. The group invests in companies based across the US and Canada.
Bill Whitaker
Managing Director Co-Chair Life Science Section 

Greenhouse Capital Partners United States

Greenhouse Capital Partner is a venture capital firm that was founded in 2006 and is based in Sausalito, California. The firm selectively makes equity investments into life science companies in seed stage and series A financing round, but it also provides growth equity to highly capital efficient companies that can achieve cash flow break-even within two years. The typical investment size ranges from $0.25 million to $2 million.The firm focuses on investments in US based companies.

Eric Desai
Principal 

H.I.G. BioVentures

H.I.G. BioVentures is the life science investment affiliate of H.I.G. Capital and has offices across the USA. H.I.G. BioVentures has assets under management of $4m and is investing from its second fund which closed at $268m in 212. The firm typically makes initial equity investments of $3-7m with the potential to invest up to $2m over the life of an investment. While most of H.I.G. BioVentures? portfolio companies are US-based the firm will consider opportunities worldwide.
Enoch Kariuki
Vice President 

Horizon Technology Finance United States

Horizon Technology Finance is a venture lending, investment and financial services management company that was founded in 2003 and is headquartered in Farmington, Ct with additional offices in Walnut Creek, CA and Reston, VA. The firm controls approximately $200 million in assets under management and look to provide senior or subordinate loans to companies in the range of $2 to $20 million dollars, and often syndicates much larger deals. The firm prefers to lead or co-lead investments that they are involved in and looks to be involved in 15 deals in the next 6-9 months. The firm provides capital to companies located throughout the United States and Canada.

Year Founded
2003
Medtech Phase of Development
Capital Structure Preference
Investment Stage Preference
Jerry Michaud

Humabs BioMed SA Switzerland

Humabs BioMed is a profitable Swiss biotech company that is discovering and developing nature-selected human monoclonal antibodies using proprietary platforms. 

Humabs is currently focusing on the development of human antibodies to fight infectious diseases. Additional indications are being targeted at the discovery research stage.

Humabs has already achieved four major licensing deals with Pharmaceutical companies generating significant revenues in the form of near term revenues, as well as a stream of longer term milestones and royalties. Two of these programs are in clinical development phases.

Humabs is seeking additional investments to allow the company to bring selected programs into clinical research on its own, thus significantly increasing the added value.

Website:
www.humabs.com
Year Founded
2010
Biotech Subsector
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Unique technology platform and know how allowing selection of monoclonal antibodies generated from immortalized human memory B cells, plasma cells or naïve B cells. Specialized in identifying, isolating, characterizing and producing the best fully human antibodies from the best human responders (antibodies of winners). Focused on infectious diseases, in which there is an acute need for new products. Additional indications include inflammatory diseases and cancer.
Alliance & Collaborations
With global Pharma companies
Current Financing Needs
Humabs is seeking additional investments to allow the company to bring selected programs forward to the more advanced drug development stages of clinical research, thus significantly increasing the added value.
Current Investors
Private
IP Status
Granted patents on technology and granted patents + applications on mAb products
Dr Alcide Barberis
Dr Alcide Barberis
LinkedIn logo President & CEO 

Iliad Ventures

Iliad Ventures is a private investment firm funded entirely by its partners that is based in New York City. The firm is looking to make equity investment into early and mid-stage life science companies ranging from $5 to 2 million initially. The firm looks to get involved in Seed and Series A Rounds. The firm could make as many as 6 investments over the next 12 months and looks to invest in companies located throughout the United States Europe and Israel.
Steve Tsetsekos
General Partner 

Immusoft Corporation United States

Immusoft’s mission is to develop a breakthrough platform for delivering targeted medicines — programming a patient’s own cells to become miniature drug factories.

Our technology instructs a patient's cells to constantly secrete gene-encoded medicines (biologics). It will enable new treatments by solving current delivery limitations and production challenges. We are initially targeting orphaned diseases. 

Immusoft’s platform can program cells to continually produce and secrete therapeutic proteins and rare antibodies that have been impossible to elicit with a vaccine. This approach makes possible treatments that are otherwise impractical due to short halflife, injection site reactions, production challenges or a small market size. It offers many of the benefits of traditional approaches and modern gene therapies with less risk and greater control.

Immusoft has received grants from the National Institutes of Health and Peter Thiel's Breakout Labs as well as support from private investors, including the former head of preclinical development at Seattle Genetics. We have an exclusive license option on our core technology from Caltech and have filed two additional patents covering our extensive modifications to the technology.

ISP technology could replace a lifetime of infusions with a patient’s own drug-producing cells.

Website:
www.immusoft.com
Year Founded
2009
Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview
Turning patients' cells into drug factories
Alliance & Collaborations
Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Discovery Genomics, Inc, University of Minnesota, The Ragon Institute, University of California San Francisco
Supporting Metrics or Evidence
Late-stage preclinical
Current Financing Needs
$3 to >$20M
Current Timeline
Preparing IND for clinical trial
Current Investors
Breakout Labs, Founders Fund Science, several angels
IP Status
multiple patents filed worldwide
Recent Milestones
GMP scale-up in preparation for clinical trial; engaging the FDA for Investigator-initiated IND; use of Sleeping Beauty Transposon non-viral vector
Management Team Highlights
Matthew Scholz (Founder and CEO) – Seasoned startup executive; founded and exited Point B Telematics. Eric Herbig, Ph.D., M.B.A. (CSO) – 15+ years of research experience and significant commercialization and management expertise. Zach Hall (Dir. of Operations) – Co-founder and operations director at two previous biomedical startups. Mei Xu, Ph.D. (Dir. of Research) – Molecular biologist with extensive research experience.
J. Zach Hall
Director of Operations 
Matthew Scholz
CEO 

InterWest Partners

InterWest Partners founded in 1979 is a venture capital firm based in Menlo Park California. The firm?s primary focus is providing venture capital to early-stage healthcare and information technology companies. The firm has raised 1 funds to date with over $2.8 billion in committed capital. The firm?s tenth fund closed in 29 at $65 million. The firm generally invests in the Series A and B rounds, initially allocating $8-12 million and up to $2 million over the life of the investment. The firm primarily invests in US-based companies but will also selectively consider opportunities abroad. The firm is actively seeking new investment opportunities.
Doug Fisher
Partner 

Kineta United States

Kineta® is a nationally-recognized biotechnology company focused on developing leading edge therapeutics in three large high need therapeutic areas: autoimmune disease, viral disease and chronic pain. Our company is focused on the development of novel drug candidates each the outcome of years of scientific exploration and supported by an extensive body of peer-reviewed NIH-supported research.

Biotech Phase of Development
Technology Overview

Kineta® is developing a pipeline of next-generation medicines to respond to the needs of millions of people facing diseases around the world. Our scientific areas of expertise are immunology and neuropathic pain with research directed at curbing inflammation and returning the immune system to normal function. Kineta has five unique drug programs in development and each program represents a novel mechanism-of-action and has potential to result in a new class of drug. The innovative portfolio is derived from leading edge scientific research that taps into promising recently discovered cellular channels that control the body's defense mechanisms. Kineta’s drug programs are designed to enhance or modulate the natural human immune system and show great potential to be more effective, more tolerable and confer fewer side effects than existing drugs. We anticipate our products will be highly sought after by patients, healthcare providers and the pharmaceutical industry.

Alliance & Collaborations
27 Scientific and academic collaborations
Current Financing Needs

Series B round of $5M with follow on series C for an additional $20M.

Current Timeline

Autoimmune drug successfully completed phase I clinical trials and is currently in a phase 1B extension study to be completed 1st quarter.  In discussions with numerous large pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies around a licensing transaction.

Antiviral and pain programs are currently in pre-clinical development with high industry interest.  We are in significant partnering discussions around several of our anti-viral drug candidates.

Current Investors

We have raised $36M since 2008.  This has been augmented with an additional $52M in NIH funding.

Our current investors are accredited investors, high net worth individuals, Family Offices, a boutique PE group and the Iacocca Foundation.

IP Status
  Protected Pipeline Secured with a
Valuable IP Portfolio ØStrong IP across each development program ØProprietary expertise in innate immunity & autoimmunity Ø27 Patent Families (28 owned, 6 in-licensed) •45 Issued Patents •154 Pending country applications •7 Pre-nationalized PCT or provisional families
Management Team Highlights

Chuck Magness, PhD

CEO

Human Genome Project; Co-founded & Sold Illumigen Biosciences ($17M + 321M); Kineta Enterprise >$60M

Shawn Iadonato, PhD

CSO

Human Genome Project; Illumigen Biosciences; Grew 5 Kineta Programs; 1st Kv1.3 in Clinic; >$35M  R&D Funds

Craig Philips, MBA

Commercial Operations

 VP & GM, Schering Plough, VP & GM, Bayer, President & GM CTI

Blake Ilstrup, JD

General Counsel /

Corporate Dev.

Hundreds of transactions with Cooley and Venture Law Group, General Counsel of Qpass, 6 Kineta transactions

Rob Hedequist

Corporate Development

Major Accounts, Managed Care & Sales/ Marketing Pfizer and Amgen; National Director Schering–Plough

Dan Eramian

Corporate Communications

First VP of communications for Biotech Industry Organization; US DOJ Director of Public Affairs; SBA

Ken North

Corporate Development

Founding CEO Seattle Savings Bank; Past president Seattle Kiwanis, Chamber of Commerce; Seafair Commodores

Dan Burge, MD

Clinical

Trubion (CMO), VP Early Development Immunex, Amgen (early development on Enbrel)

Jeff Fellows

Regulatory

Global Regulatory Lead Amgen,  VP Regulatory Alder, VP Regulatory CTI,  First Kv1.3 in clinic, Sensipar Amgen

Mr Rob Hedequist
Senior Vice President Corporate Development 
Blake Ilstrup
Jacques Bouchy