The 50 most ac­tive biotech VC funds in 2017

With mon­ey flow­ing fast in­to the cof­fers of biotech ven­ture funds, it’s easy for cash-hun­gry com­pa­nies to imag­ine VCs are al­ways on the prowl for promis­ing bets. But new da­ta sug­gest some in­vestors are far more like­ly to gam­ble on new­com­ers than oth­ers.

Jonathan Nor­ris, the guy who puts to­geth­er Sil­i­con Val­ley Bank’s bi-an­nu­al and an­nu­al VC re­ports, no­ticed our own list of 100 VCs in bio­phar­ma didn’t tell the whole sto­ry. While VCs are mak­ing sev­er­al in­vest­ments per year, lots of those funds are chip­ping in ad­di­tion­al cash to their port­fo­lio com­pa­ny’s fol­low-on rounds. They’re dou­bling down on ex­ist­ing bets rather than seek­ing new deals. So Nor­ris looked at his own da­ta from 2017, took out all fol­low-on in­vest­ments, and just looked at deals in which VCs were mak­ing first-time in­vest­ments in com­pa­nies.

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