Lumira Ventures Closes on US$255 Million of New Capital to Build Transformative Healthcare Companies

Lumira Ventures today announced a significant expansion of its capital base to support the founding and building of innovative healthcare companies in Canada and the U.S. The closing of the oversubscribed Lumira Ventures IV at US$220 million represents the largest fund Lumira has raised to date, and the largest institutional life sciences venture capital fund ever raised in Canada. In parallel, Lumira closed a strategic venture fund in partnership with an international pharmaceutical company. Collectively, the new funds represent over US$255 million (Canadian $321 million) of committed capital.

“This has been a truly transformative time for Lumira Ventures and the life sciences sector in Canada and around the world,” said Peter van der Velden, co-founder and Managing General Partner of Lumira Ventures. “While Lumira Ventures IV is more than 55% larger than our prior fund, its mission and strategy remain the same – investing in companies at the forefront of biomedical innovation whose products have the potential to transform patient outcomes, improve healthcare access and reduce the cost of healthcare delivery. We invest in and help build companies led by mission-driven healthcare entrepreneurs that are often located in underserved regions of the North American life sciences ecosystem.”

“With strong, and often increased levels of support from all of our prior fund’s institutional investors, and significant commitments from a broad range of new investors, we have been able to seamlessly continue executing our proven investment approach,” van der Velden added. “We deeply appreciate the continued support of our long-time partners, and are excited to welcome a new group of financial and strategic investors to the Lumira community.”

Genevieve Guertin M.Sc., CFA, Vice President Investments – Life Sciences, Fonds de solidarité FTQ commented, “We have been backing Lumira since 2007. We are grateful for this collaboration with a group that shares our passion for strengthening Québec and Canada’s life science sector, as well as our commitment to bringing new innovative solutions to patients. In addition to being a significant investor in Lumira’s four main funds, we have frequently co-invested with the firm and can speak to the skill and depth of this excellent team.”

“Investor interest in our new fund meaningfully exceeded our expectations, a testament to the value of the platform our team has been building since 2005,” said Gerry Brunk, co-founder and Managing Director of Lumira Ventures. “The past 18 months have brought an unprecedented set of challenges worldwide. We’ve been encouraged during this time to see the growing recognition of the value of investing in biomedical innovation. We also recognize the remarkable perseverance and accomplishments of the founders and entrepreneurs in our portfolio, and across our sector. Looking ahead, the depth and quality of our pipeline of new investment opportunities, on both sides of the border, has never been stronger in the two decades our team has been investing together, and we’ve already closed four investments from our new fund.”

Lumira Ventures IV has the most diverse and balanced investor base in the firm’s history, with strong participation from family offices, foundations, funds-of-funds, pension plans, sovereign government funds and strategic corporate investors. Investors in the fund include: Kensington Capital Partners, Fonds de Solidarité FTQ, Northleaf Capital Partners, Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec, the Business Development Bank of Canada, Teralys Capital, the Ontario Capital Growth Corporation, Royal Bank of Canada, Investissement Québec, Fondaction, Alexandria Venture Investments, Angelini Pharma, China Grand Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Holdings, Vancity, and Amana Global Partners.

Rick Nathan, Senior Managing Director at Kensington Capital, said, “We are proud to be the lead commitment to Lumira Ventures IV as we renew our longstanding and successful relationship.  The Lumira team has clearly emerged as Canada’s venture capital leader in life sciences.” Jérôme Nycz, Executive Vice President, BDC Capital, added, “BDC Capital is proud to continue to support a high-performing manager such as Lumira for the third consecutive fund. The firm is expertly addressing the funding needs of Canada’s world-renowned life sciences sector, and we are pleased to see that Lumira Ventures IV has attracted strategic and financial investors new to venture investing in Canada.”

Since the beginning of 2020 Lumira Ventures has achieved eight realizations and its portfolio companies have received two landmark FDA product approvals and collectively completed over US$800 million in new financings and IPOs.  Lumira currently manages a portfolio of over 30 private and public companies.

About Lumira Ventures

Lumira Ventures is a North American healthcare venture capital firm with a two-decade track record investing in transformative biomedical companies.  We are a multi-stage investor that partners with mission-driven entrepreneurs and like-minded investors to build innovative companies in the biotechnology, medical device and digital health sectors.  These companies are harnessing rapidly evolving innovations in genomics, cell therapy, gene therapy, bioengineering, robotics and artificial intelligence to develop high impact, often transformative products for patients while generating exceptional returns for our investors and meaningful economic value to society. To date, our companies have brought dozens of biomedical innovations to the market, impacting the lives of over 1 billion patients worldwide and generating over $70 billion of cumulative revenue. Lumira Ventures manages its activities from offices in Toronto, Montréal, Vancouver and Boston. 

Legal Notices
Lumira Ventures provides investment advisory services solely to privately offered investment funds. Lumira Ventures neither solicits nor makes its services available to the public and none of the investment funds are currently open to new investors. The contents of this press release are not an offer to sell nor a solicitation of an offer to purchase interests of Lumira Ventures or any current or future related investment fund, nor do they constitute a financial promotion, investment advice or an inducement or incitement to participate in any product, offering or investment.