Vivo Capital has closed an oversubscribed eighth fund at $750 million to invest in later-stage pharma and medical device companies in the U.S. and revenue-stage companies in greater China. That's precisely twice the size of its prior fund, which closed at $375 million in January 2012.
This brings the total assets under management for Vivo to more than $1.7 billion.
The firm plans to continue its focus on enabling healthcare companies to create cross-border partnerships to facilitate the acquisition of new products in order to expand their markets. It also expects to use the fund to start its own companies, in addition to investing in later-stage companies with likely FDA approvals as well as public companies.
With offices in Palo Alto, Beijing and Shanghai, Vivo has a few partners with a background particularly in working with medical device and diagnostics companies.
These include Managing Partner Dr. Albert Cha, who invested in aesthetic medical device player Bioform Medical, which was acquired by Merz for $235 million in 2010, and lung sealant company Neomend, which was acquired by Bard ($BCR) for $140 million in 2012. Cha holds a M.S. in electrical engineering from Stanford University, as well as an M.D. and Ph.D. in neuroscience from UCLA School of Medicine. Vivo Managing Partner Chen Yu was also previously the CBO of China KangHui, a publicly listed Chinese orthopedic company.
Within its active portfolio of roughly 22 healthcare companies, at least 5 are med techs: AeroForm, which makes a patient-controlled breast tissue expander for use before reconstructive surgery; SentreHeart, which has a novel suture delivery and tissue closure device; spinal cord injury and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis neurostimulation startup Synapse BioMedical; light-based at-home aesthetic device company Tria Beauty; and Capnia, which has diagnostics based on precision-metered gas flow.
Limited partners in the new fund include unnamed pension funds, financial institutions, endowments, foundations, family offices, and fund of funds. It attracted new institutional investors from the U.S., Europe and Asia.
The Vivo Capital fund is only the latest healthcare-focused fund to raise huge sums. So far in 2015, Bessemer Venture Partners has closed a $1.6 billion fund, while New Enterprise is wrapping up a new $2.5 billion fund.
- here is the release