The history of Venture Capital dates back to 1946 courtesy of the American Research and Development Corp., founded by Georges Doriot, who is subsequently considered to be the father of VC. Though many may argue the following (myself included)…The birth of biotechnology can be pegged to the 1953 presentation of the DNA double-helix structure by Watson and Crick (and others). So then one may postulate that these two industries, VC & biotech, have more or less grown-up together. Talk about symbiosis…survival of each seemingly dependent upon the other (that is when considering life science specific venture funds).
One fund in particular has been masterfully catalyzing biotechnologies now for some forty-years…Venrock, who to date has invested approximately $2.4 billion in 437 companies since fund inception yielding and incredible 124 IPO's and 129 M&A exits. Simply an amazing track record! Some of these companies include Geron (Nasdaq: GERN), Gilead Sciences (Nasdaq: GILD), Idexx Labs (Nasdaq: IDXX), Ligand Pharma (Nasdaq: LGND), Millenium Pharma (Nasdaq: MLNM) and Sepracor (Nasdaq: SEPR) just to name a few.
In celebration of their rich (pun intended…) history and 40-year milestone Venrock has published Shaping the Future: 40 Years of Innovation. If you have an entrepreneurial streak in you set aside some time to enjoy the following focus on 40 start-ups (bio and non-bio) and the entrepreneurs that created them. (If you have trouble observing the slide presentation in your CLSDF email subscription take a look [HERE]).
Tuesday, September 01, 2009
Venrock | Building Companies for 40 years
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