Life Science Startups Raise $8.2 Billion from VCs in 2014 (CB Insights)
Here’s where the money in life sciences going – by geo, by industry and the biggest deals.
Life science companies (medical device, pharma, biotech) raised $8.2B from VC firms in 2014, up 28% YoY. Q2’14 was the strongest quarter, with $2.7B invested across 161 deals buoyed by the $200M growth equity round into Intarcia Therapeutics.
The Top Healthcare Deals Raise More than $1.3B
2014 saw 5 healthcare rounds greater than $100M. RNA therapeutics company Moderna’s$450M Series E deal in December was the biggest of the year in biotech history. Following after was Intarcia Therapeutics $200M Growth Equity Round and Juno Therapeutics $134 Series B round (with the company going public later that year).
California and Massachusetts Take More Than Half Of Healthcare Deals
Most of healthcare deals were concentrated in California, where 38% of total deals occurred including $100M+ deals in Alignment Healthcare and InVitae. Massachusetts was the second largest hub for the industry with 17% of deals. Pennsylvania’s emerging life sciences scene managed to take 5% of deals, including investments in Spark Therapeutics and TELA Bio.
Medical Devices and Biotech Lead Healthcare Funding Share
The majority of funding in the healthcare space was split near evenly between Medical Devices & Equipment and Biotechnology despite Biotechnology having 51 fewer deals. While Medical Devices & Equipment saw no deals above $51M, Biotechnology had more than 5 deals above this amount including the aforementioned $450M round into Moderna. Drug Development was the only other industry to take more than 10% of funding share.
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