The founders of Dimension, who formerly worked at Lux Capital and Obvious Ventures, have stated their intention to center their work on the interface between the biological sciences and computer science.
Here are 6 Things You Need to Know About Venture Veterans Launching $350 Million Fund to Digitize Lifesciences;
FACTS ONE
It would seem that the venture capital business is going through a difficult period right now, particularly with regard to the healthcare sector. According to CB Insights, overall venture capital investments in 2022 were down 35% from 2021, with investments in digital health down by nearly 50% of the total. However, there is still hope for the industry as more and more investors are looking to Digitize Lifesciences, which could potentially lead to more investment in this sector. According to Evaluate Vantage, biopharma investment managed to buck the general trend by a little amount, falling by just 23% from the previous year.
FACTS TWO
Having said that, total investment in healthcare is basically only returning to the levels it was at in 2019. This seems to be a regression to the mean after the pandemic prompted an increase in investment money into sectors like medication research and other aspects of the healthcare business. According to investor Zavain Dar, 34, what’s lacking in the venture investment industry for healthcare is a company that’s equipped to capitalize on the burgeoning convergence of biotech and computing, such as Digitize Lifesciences.
According to what he tells Forbes, “there was no sort of organization that was sector-specific and totally designed from the ground up to invest precisely at this juncture.”
Because of this, Dar has decided to leave his old employer, Lux Capital, and join forces with another former Lux graduate Adam Goulburn as well as former Obvious Ventures employee Nan Li. In March of 2022, the three individuals established a brand new venture capital business under the name Dimension with the intention of functioning as the aforementioned sector-specific organization, focused on investing in emerging fields such as Digitize Lifesciences.
Li, who is 36 years old, is quoted as saying, “The idea of it is that we’re aiming to develop a new, very distinctive hybrid investment business that’s half typical life science firm and part traditional software firm.”
FACTS THREE
The team’s success may also be attributed to their vision to digitize lifesciences and healthcare, a rapidly growing trend in the industry. As Li mentioned, they were leveraging their investment track record and learnings from Lux and Obvious to identify promising startups and technologies that could transform the healthcare landscape.
The demand for digital health solutions and technologies has grown significantly in recent years, and investors are increasingly interested in companies that can leverage data, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies to improve patient outcomes and reduce costs. It’s clear that the team’s focus on digitize lifesciences has resonated with investors, as evidenced by the oversubscription of their first fund.
FACTS FOUR
Goulburn, who is 41 years old, adds that one of the most important aspects of the company’s investment thesis is the search for businesses that are genuinely embracing data science as an integrated part of their research in biotechnology and that are looking for investors who are able to speak the same language.
According to him, yearly spending on research and development by life science corporations is in the hundreds of billions of dollars. “It shouldn’t be a bolt-on type of technology play from conventional life sciences, and it shouldn’t be a component of a wider plan from general IT corporations,” says the author of the article. This community needs a fund that is targeted at a certain industry. Investors that are fluent and bilingual in life science and computational bio are in high demand among startup companies.
FACTS FIVE
At the moment, Digitize Lifesciences-backed Dimension is an early-stage fund that is primarily concerned with seed and Series A rounds, and it has already begun issuing checks. Within its first year of operation, Dimension has already begun making investments into four of its portfolio companies. These include Kaleidoscope Bio, which develops software for tracking projects for scientific teams; Enveda Biosciences, which is developing AI tools to discover drugs from natural products; and Lamin AI, which is developing a data infrastructure for R&D data from laboratories in order to make it simpler to share information. Goulburn maintains that the fourth business is still operating under covert cover.
FACTS SIX
According to Dar, the CEO of Dimension, the junction of data science and the digitization of life sciences is still in its infancy, and he views his company as debuting at the appropriate moment to help establish the path that the industry will take. He adds, “We are pleased to be able to develop the playbooks, standards, and key performance indicators and assist change these firms.”
