Amplitude Ventures, a Montreal-based life sciences VC firm, has raised a second fund to deploy into 14 to 16 startups.
Dion MadsenThe $263 million CAD ($192 million) precision medicine fund has already invested in inflammatory diseases biotech Evommune, AbbVie- and Gilead-partnered company Tentarix Biotherapeutics and two Vancouver startups: Reverb Therapeutics and Evolved Therapeutics. A fifth investment will close this week, Amplitude partner Dion Madsen told Endpoints News.
It follows the firm’s first fund, which had a final close of approximately $200 million CAD ($145 million) in June 2021. The inaugural fund has supported companies like radiotherapeutics startup Abdera, drug discovery shop Congruence, Radiant Biotherapeutics, Repare Therapeutics and AI startup Valence, which Recursion bought last May.
Amplitude’s sophomore fund arrives as multiple VC firms raise additional pools of capital to support the development of new medicines. Five-year-old Amplitude said it wants to focus more on creating new companies, a model that has been the bread and butter of other life sciences VC firms like Versant, Third Rock Ventures and others. It’s working with the drug discovery platform at German biotech Evotec to create new startups.
“We are sourcing IP from all around the world because we are trying to build the best platforms, but we are starting the companies here in Montreal and then staffing them out,” Madsen said. “Our typical mode of starting companies has been to build teams on both sides of the border and really leverage the natural nexus that exists between Montreal and Boston or Vancouver and Seattle.”
About 80% of Amplitude’s capital goes toward seed and Series A financings, Madsen said.
“About half of our first fund investments were either AI-centric companies, like Valence and Deep Genomics, or they’re really leveraging AI and machine learning as a key part of their technology stack,” the partner said, “and we see that as a key part going forward.”
Multiple Canadian groups backed the fund, including CDPQ, Royal Bank of Canada, Investissement Québec, Fonds de solidarité FTQ, BDC Capital, Fondaction, Teralys Capital, Venture Ontario and Alberta Enterprise Corporation.
Amplitude said its new limited partners are NorthLeaf Capital Partners, InBC, Finchley Healthcare Ventures and the Canadian government’s Venture Capital Catalyst Initiative life sciences unit. Other beneficiaries of the VCCI include AllosteRx Capital-CCRM, CTI Life Sciences Fund, Genesys Capital, Pender Ventures and Sectoral Asset Management.