US-based venture capital firm Mission Bay Capital closed a $25m second fund featuring contributions from healthcare company Novozymes and commercial and residential real estate development company Sobrato Organisation yesterday.
Sobrato invested in MBC Fund II through its corporate venturing arm, Sobrato Capital, and the fund’s backers also included UCSF Foundation, the investment arm of University of California San Francisco, as well as William K Bowes Jr Foundation, real estate investor Capital Pacific, and undisclosed private investors.
MBC Fund II, which was oversubscribed, will make seed-stage investments in life sciences companies, though the size of individual investments has not been disclosed.
Founded in 2009 as a spin out of University of California’s research institute and accelerator QB3, Mission Bay focuses on bioscience companies emerging from the University of California and the San Francisco Bay Area.
Mission’s $11.3m first fund invested in 15 companies and celebrated three successful exits, including iPierian, a biotechnology company developing treatments for neurodegenerative diseases, which was acquired by pharmaceutical company Bristol-Myers Squibb in April 2014.