If there’s anything this pandemic has taught us, it's that biotech—and its investors—will not be stopped. With a $400 million raise, Atlas Venture is the latest VC shop to close a major fund since the World Health Organization officially declared COVID-19 a pandemic, joining the likes of Arch, Flagship and Deerfield.
“The biotech sector has been a focus for the institutional investors that invest in firms like Atlas and our peers for several years now, and in some ways the pandemic has underscored the importance of advancing innovation in therapeutics,” Bruce Booth, a partner at Atlas Venture, told FierceBiotech in an email. “It’s been humbling, to say the least, to have such strong support from the LP community during such a challenging and uncertain time for many.”
The latest fund, Fund XII, will back “breakthrough biotech startups” and advance Atlas’ mission of “doing well by doing good.” It includes investing partners Booth, Jason Rhodes, Kevin Bitterman, Jean-François Formela, David Grayzel and Michael Gladstone, who was newly promoted to partner. Since he joined Atlas in 2012, Gladstone has played a key role in several of its portfolio companies, from IFM Therapeutics and nonalcoholic-steatohepatitis-focused Akero to gene therapy player Avrobio.