5 Questions for Jim Garvey of SV Life Sciences
SV Life Sciences today announced that it has closed its fifth fund with over $523 million in capital commitments, busting through its original $400 million target. Looks like the second-largest fundraise of 2010 from a healthcare-focused VC firm (OrbiMed raised $550m), so I spent a few minutes on the phone with SV chairman and managing partner Jim Garvey: peHUB: Many VC firms are having trouble closing on even half of their fund targets, but you were well oversubscribed. Here’s the softball: Why did LPs love you so much? Garvey: One reason is that we’ve been at this for 15 years and our first three funds have demonstrable track records. And I think when times turned tough and LPs were hit with liquidity crises, many of them used performance as the deciding factor on who they were going to keep following. Our strategy is probably a good fit in difficult times, because it’s very broad across healthcare. We’re investing across two continents, early-stage to late-stage and in biotech, pharma and healthcare IT.
