CMEA Capital, a venture capital firm, has hired Brett Cummings as chief financial officer (CFO), while promoting the previous incumbent, John Haag, to chief operating partner.
CMEA also said its $400m, 2008-vintage fund might be last in its current format.
Jim Watson (pictured), managing general partner was reported by news providers PEHub and Fortune as telling limited partners at its annual meeting that though CMEA’s seventh fund was just about fully committed, the firm had no plans in place to raise fund eight.
Instead, the partners are focused on managing their portfolio and on testing new investment models and new ways to structure alternative-investment vehicles, having hired Josh Lerner, a professor at Harvard Business School, to study issues hurting venture capitalists’ performance and to help the firm identify the best way to make venture investments.
The firm has carved out $20 million from its current fund to support Velocity Pharmaceutical Development, a platform it will use to acquire drugs and test them in further clinical studies. It will then sell the compounds to drug companies that need later-stage products to fill their pipelines, PEHub said.
Fortune added that CMEA declined an offer by drugs company Eli Lilly to work on a $250m pharmaceuticals fund, whereby Lilly would commit $50m and open up its orphaned catalog but receive buyback rights. Fortune said Lilly made a similar offer to Healthcare Ventures and TVM Capital.