#JPMorgan2021 – It’s Here!
Our JPM 2021 corporate access event will have two components:
- Virtual one on one meetings, Monday – Thursday, January 11 – 14th
- Usual JPM financial community outreach (buyside, sell-side, banking)
- Virtual 20 minute video presentations, available on our website
- Pre-recorded the week of January 4th and available on our corporate access page starting at 7am ET on Monday, January 11th
You can decide to participate in one or both of these events.
Note that our 1×1 outreach effort will begin this week, so please connect with your account team to confirm your participation, as well as details around availability, meeting preferences and priorities!
Biotech VCs – New Funds Raised by Familiar Names as New Investors Jump In
Last week, longtime VC Canaan Partners became the latest group to announce its newest fund: the firm raised an additional $800M, which it will invest 60/40 in technology and life sciences, with about 80% of the life sciences money going into biotech. The strategy for the new fund will remain largely the same as Canaan’s previous ventures, focusing on companies either going into their first human trials or developing new drug discovery platforms, and working in the oncology, immunology and ophthalmology spaces. The firm is also looking to places where it can drive liquidity within one to three rounds of venture capital, and pointed to Stern IR client Arvinas, along with several others, of good examples of their investment strategy at work.
Additionally, last week saw a new investor join the biotech party: Mubadala, the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, acquired $236M of Evotec in a private placement. Over the past few years, Mubadala has sought to diversify its wealth away from oil and natural gas, taking stakes in private equity firms, while also investing in retail and telecom. Recently, they have turned their attention to biotech, investing in three private rounds this year (Owkin, Science 37 and Orca Bio), in addition to this sizeable stake in Evotec. Going forward, Mubadala says that life sciences is among the places they intend to invest, and plans to focus mainly on markets in India, China and Southeast Asia,
Market Update:
The markets stayed stable last week, with the NASDAQ, DJI, and S&P 500 gaining 3%, 1% and 1% respectively as of Thursday EOD. The VIX gained 2%, sitting at 26.97 as of market close on 10/15. The biotech markets performed similarly, with the NBI and BTK closing down 2% each, and the XBI gaining 1% week over week.
Last week was relatively quiet in the public markets, perhaps marking the start of the expected pre-earnings/election slowdown. We saw several deals price, as follows:
- Five IPOs priced: Aligos ($150M), Codiak ($82.5M), Eargo ($141.3M), Praxis ($126 M) and Tarsus ($88M). We also wanted to call out Kronos ($250.0M), Spruce ($90M), which both priced late the week of October 5th.
- One SPAC: Foresite’s FS Development Corp, which raised $121M when it landed on NASDAQ two months ago, announced a merger with Gemini Therapeutics, as well as a concurrent private placement ($95). Investors participating in the private placement include Gemini’s existing investors, Atlas, Lightstone, OrbiMed and Wu Capital, along with new investors Fidelity, Wellington, Boxer Capital, Alyeska, Suvretta, CVF, DAFNA, and Acorn Bioventures.
- Two follow-ons: Royalty Pharma ($726.6M) and Ocular ($70M).
On the private side, Stern IR Client Cedilla raised a $57.6M Series B. Other private rounds include Edigene ($Series B, $67M), Priothera Limited (Series A, €30M), RayzeBio (Series A, $45M) and VectivBio (Undisclosed, $110M).