Cancer research foundation to start seeding startups
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Andy Rachleff is funding startups again, more than two decades after stepping down as a founding partner of legendary venture capital firm Benchmark.
Why it matters: His new mission is curing cancers instead of generating profits for limited partners.
Driving the news: Rachleff tells Axios that he's spearheading a new investment program for the Damon Runyon Cancer Research Foundation, where he chairs the board.
- It's called InVEST and will automatically provide $50,000 equity checks to any Damon Runyon-sponsored scientists who secure at least $500,000 in seed funding for their startups.
- For the scientists, it's a way to prove to venture firms that they're "fundable."
- For Damon Runyan, it's a way to create a philanthropic flywheel — as its alumni have founded such companies as Moderna, Juno Therapeutics, Beam Therapeutics, and Arbor Biotechnologies.
Zoom in: Damon Runyan focuses exclusively on young scientists, or at least scientists who are relatively early in their careers.
- Rachleff and CEO Yung Lie argue that most major scientific breakthroughs come from this cohort, but that most funding goes to older colleagues.
- "The average age where people get their first individual NIH grant is over 40, but the average age of a Nobel Laureate in medicine is just 36 at the time they conceive of their breakthrough," Rachelff explains.
By the numbers: Damon Runyan backs around 70 new scientists per year, has 1,400 alumni, and spins out between 10 and 20 startups per year.
- It had initially considered creating some sort of investment program whereby the startups would pay royalties but decided that could impede growth.
- All investments will come from the foundation's endowment.
The bottom line, per Rachleff: "We view this as an incredible win-win. And that's a very good thing in a world where scientific funding is under attack."
