Ontario has gained a new early-stage, life sciences venture capital (VC) fund.
The news: The University of Toronto (U of T), Hamilton’s McMaster University, and the Ontario government have teamed up to finance a new fund focused on seed-stage life sciences spinouts tied to both schools and partner hospitals. The group announced on Wednesday that the Genesys University Seed Fund has already secured a first close of more than $30 million CAD from limited partners (LPs), including U of T, McMaster, Venture Ontario, the Temerty Group—which supports U of T’s medical school—and RBC. Experienced local life sciences VC Genesys Capital will manage the fund, which aims to raise up to $40 million total, invest up to $1 million apiece in 10 to 15 startups, and deploy up to $5 million into its biggest winners.
From the source: Ontario is one of North America’s largest life sciences clusters, home to nearly 76,000 workers across more than 2,000 firms. But in a news release, U of T and McMaster said scarce funding has led promising innovators to relocate to Boston or Silicon Valley. “Canada has no shortage of ideas or talent; what we lack is the capital to scale them,” U of T president Melanie Woodin said in a statement.
Following the thread: According to The Globe and Mail, The Genesys University Seed Fund will back startups developing medical devices and drugs targeting cancer and heart and brain ailments. It appears to be among Canada’s largest university spinout funds to date. The University of British Columbia (UBC) and InBC are currently working to raise a fund of the same size to support the creation of more UBC-born companies. The University of Calgary’s UCeed is taking a different approach to the same problem, leveraging venture philanthropy.
Final thought: The rate at which Canadian universities turn their discoveries into commercial innovations has remained stubbornly low. Another fund to help finance that process is surely welcome news for Ontario entrepreneurs looking to bridge that gap. The fund is designed to attract additional private capital and geared towards two already strong life sciences research universities that have helped birth companies like Deep Genomics and Fusion Pharmaceuticals. If successful, U of T hopes to create similar funds for other sectors.
Feature image courtesy Wikimedia Commons. Photo by Ken Eckert (CC BY-SA 4.0).