Freeflow Ventures Raises $90M In Funding For Early Stage Deep Tech Investments
28 Junio 2024 - 11:00AM
Business Wire
First Berkeley Ecosystem Investment Made with
Catena Bio
Freeflow Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm that
invests in science-driven solutions to human and planetary health
challenges, announced today that it raised $50M in new funds
through its $35M Fund Two and $15M Opportunity Fund. Including a
$25M Fund One and $15M in SPVs, Freeflow now has $90M in assets
under management. In a challenging market for venture capital,
Freeflow doubled its fundraising from the Fund One to Fund Two
cycle. In addition, the firm announced its most recent investment
into Catena Bio, its first into the Berkeley ecosystem of deep tech
startups.
Freeflow began at Caltech in Pasadena, where the firm has made
over 30 investments since 2020 into companies founded by the
world’s leading scientists, including Nobel Laureates Frances
Arnold (Chemistry, 2018), David Baltimore (Physiology or Medicine,
1975) and Bob Grubbs (Chemistry, 2005). The prominence of deep tech
innovation and breakthrough science in Berkeley shares similarities
to Pasadena. Building on top of the foundation created at Caltech,
with an investment into Catena, Freeflow expands its
ecosystem-focused operating model to Berkeley, providing Freeflow
with deal flow from two of the top ten scientific research
communities in the world (Source: Times Higher Education).
Catena Bio is at the forefront of next generation Antibody Drug
Conjugate (ADC) technology with a novel conjugation that enables
multiple payload capabilities for cancer treatment that can
significantly improve patient outcomes. CEO and cofounder Marco
Lobba worked on the underlying Catena technology when he was a PhD
student at UC Berkeley in the labs of Matt Francis, Professor and
Emeritus Chair of the Department of Chemistry at UC Berkeley, and
Jennifer Doudna, Nobel Laureate in Chemistry (2020) for
co-inventing CRISPR, the gene-editing technology, and the Li Ka
Shing Chancellor's Chair in Biomedical and Health Sciences and
Professor of Molecular Therapeutics at UC Berkeley. Catena is also
a member of the Bakar BioEngenuity Hub at UC Berkeley.
“This new funding enables us to expand our model to Berkeley, an
important addition to our operating model because it shares so many
similarities to Caltech and JPL where amazing founders working on
large-scale solutions to important problems continue to create high
quality investment opportunities. These two communities align very
nicely with our focused thesis on human and planetary health,” said
David Fleck, founder and managing partner, Freeflow Ventures.
About Freeflow Ventures
Freeflow is an early stage venture capital firm that invests in
large-scale opportunities to improve human and planetary health.
Founded in 2019, the firm has built an investment and support model
for the groundbreaking innovation of Caltech and Berkeley. To date,
Freeflow has invested in over 30 companies that blend fundamental
and computational science to scale sustainable solutions to
intractable problems. Visit https://www.freeflow.io/ to learn
more.
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version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20240628933548/en/
Steve Roy 617-642-9783 steve@freeflow.io