Versant Ventures related stories
All articles and analysis
Canadian VC market gets a boost in 2016It reached new records in terms of funds raised and money invested that were not seen since the dot-com era.
- Vividion Therapeutics picks up $50 mln Series A
San Diego-based biotech company Vividion Therapeutics has raised $50 million in Series A funding. ARCH Venture Partners and Versant Ventures led the round with participation from Cardinal Partners.
- Kinestral Technologies pulls in $65 mln Series C
Kinestral Technologies, a maker of smart-tinting glass, has secured $65 million in Series C funding. AGC Asahi Glass led the round with participation from other backers that included Hermes-Epitek, 5AM Ventures, Alexandria Venture Investments, Capricorn Investment Group, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Versant Ventures. In conjunction with the funding, Jean-François Heris, senior executive officer of AGC and president of AGC Building and Industrial Glass Company, has been added to Kinestral's board of directors.
- Therachon lands $5 mln Series A
Basel, Switzerland-based Therachon AG, a biotech company focused on rare genetic diseases, has secured an additional $5 million in Series A funding. Therachon's investors include Versant Ventures, Inserm Transfer Initiative OrbiMed and Bpifrance. In addition to the funding, Therachon has named Dr. Luca Santarelli as CEO and added Bpifrance’s Chahra Louafi to its board of directors.
- Top 2016 Canadian VC deals rake in more than $1.1 bln
Canada’s top 10 venture-capital financings in 2016 drew more than $1.1 billion from investors, more than twice the $534 million that went into the top 10 deals in 2015. That number is based on PE Hub Canada's list of the largest deals announced last year, supplemented by preliminary Thomson Reuters data. The list is headed by BlueRock Therapeutics, Thalmic Labs, DalCor Pharma and Real Matters, which were responsible for the biggest crop of $100 million-plus financings in Canada since the dot.com era.
Versant promotes Mary Haak-Frendscho to venture partnerU.S. venture capital firm Versant Ventures, which this week closed its sixth life sciences fund /canada/2017/1/3428644/ at $538 million, has appointed Mary Haak-Frendscho to the role of venture partner based in Toronto. Haak-Frendscho, who joined Versant in 2016 as CEO of Toronto incubator Blueline Bioscience, will support the firm's efforts to build a Canadian biotech portfolio in partnership with academics and entrepreneurs. Versant also appointed Lloyd Segal, formerly a managing partner at Canadian healthcare private equity firm Persistence Capital Partners, as a Montréal-based entrepreneur-in-residence.