Cal­i­for­nia dream­in': Red Tree VC shop takes Boston fund­s' spin­out ap­proach to West Coast

The leaves are brown, the tem­per­a­ture is warm and Red Tree Ven­ture Cap­i­tal is dream­ing of Cal­i­for­nia — and some oth­er West Coast states as well.

The VC firm is out with its first fund, two years in the mak­ing and of­fi­cial­ly wrapped up in June, to bankroll at least a dozen biotechs and med­ical de­vice star­tups for which the cap­i­tal de­ploy­er wants to be the first in­sti­tu­tion­al backer.

Named af­ter its co-founder’s Stan­ford roots and the team’s love for the out­doors, Red Tree wants to repli­cate the uni­ver­si­ty spin­out ap­proach that has ce­ment­ed the biotech cre­ation blue­print for Boston funds like Third Rock, Po­laris, At­las and Flag­ship, man­ag­ing part­ner Heath Lukatch told End­points News in a pre­view of the Thurs­day un­veil­ing.

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