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As a subscriber you can listen to articles at work, in the car, or while you work out. Subscribe NowBioCrossroads has raised $58 million for its new INext fund, a successor venture capital vehicle to the $73 million Indiana
Future Fund the life science initiative raised in 2003.
INext’s institutional investors include Eli Lilly
and Co., the Indiana State Teachers Retirement Fund, Indiana University and Purdue University, all of which invested in the
IFF. INext also has two new investors: the Richard M. Fairbanks Foundation and the University of Notre Dame.
Like
its predecessor, INext will be a life science-focused fund-of-funds managed by global investment bank Credit Suisse. IFF channeled
its money through six professional venture capital partnerships, which in turn invested the capital in 90 life science companies,
including 14 Hoosier startups.
Philip Belt, who will manage INext for Credit Suisse, said the six IFF-backed venture
capital firms have made a combined $40 million in investments in the 14 Hoosier startups, leveraging $160 million in funding
from other VCs not affiliated with BioCrossroads.
Just as it did with the IFF, Credit Suisse plans to put INext’s
money to work in four to six venture firms. Credit Suisse already has selected two: Menlo Park, California-based 5AM Ventures
and New York-based OrbiMedi Advisors LLC. Credit Suisse is considering 20 other venture capital firms—including
the six affiliated with the IFF—to deploy INext’s remaining capital.
BioCrossroads was scheduled to
formally announce its new fund Wednesday at a 10 a.m. news conference at the Eli Lilly and Co. corporate
center.
BioCrossroads CEO David Johnson, who helped steer formation of the Indiana Future
Fund from its earliest discussions in 2001, noted the difference between then and now.
“In
putting the first Indiana Future Fund together and in trying to interest venture capital firms to come
in and take the funding, even getting them to show up and have the conversation was hard. It is not hard
now,” Johnson said. “To me, that is a metric of success. We are on that map.”
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