CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Dec. 15, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- As Flagship
Ventures enters its 17th year, the firm announced today
that it is changing its name to Flagship Pioneering. Flagship's
evolved name reflects the distinctive nature of its enterprise:
systematically conceiving, creating, resourcing and growing
first-in-category ventures to transform human health and
sustainability. The announcement comes as the firm closed an
innovative, follow-on capital pool, capping a year of unprecedented
achievements. The $285 million
Special Opportunities Fund operates alongside Flagship's most
recent early-stage family of funds, Fund V, which totalled
$585 million and closed in
2015. This brings the total in active capital being deployed
within the next generation of ventures to $870 million, and the overall funds managed by
Flagship Pioneering to $1.75
billion.
"The inspiration behind the evolved name comes from our unique
process of 'Pioneering' through which we envision and make
unforeseen innovations that have disruptive value potential, and
systematically create new ventures to realize their promise," said
Noubar Afeyan, founder and CEO of
Flagship Pioneering. "Through pioneering, we purposely distance
ourselves from current products and advances that represent only a
short leap in innovation beyond them; this is the place where
industry incumbents and conventional start-ups view it as logical
and reasonable to explore for what's next. Instead,
Flagship's scientific ventures start by exploring unprecedented
solutions for unsolved problems representing unproven value
opportunities. In doing so, we discover completely new pools of
value and realize them for the benefit of society and our
partners."
Originally conceived in 1999 as an experiment in institutional
venture creation and named NewcoGen (from New Company Generation),
Flagship has consistently focused on creating and building new
ventures. The firm adopted the name Flagship Ventures in 2002
as it added a more significant venture financing component to its
entrepreneurial innovation roots and began supporting the growth
and development of a broader portfolio of internal and external
ventures.
"Pioneering is the founding act that gives rise to all of
Flagship's ventures and the spirit that drives them. We are
committed to building companies that become lifelong pioneers in
their respective fields," said Doug
Cole, managing partner. "Throughout its 16-year
history, Flagship's core has been the conception and development of
companies by applying a unique, disciplined process for scientific
innovation and professional venture creation. This process operates
within Flagship's in-house innovation foundry, VentureLabs, and
represents a disruptive alternative to both conventional venture
capital and start-up incubator or accelerator models."
Pioneering Scientific Ventures for
Life
Comprising innovators, entrepreneurs and operating
executives, the Flagship team is deeply involved in making
scientific breakthroughs, founding new ventures and developing
companies. The firm uniquely combines a deliberate,
hypothesis-driven process to generate breakthrough innovation, with
a professional venture creation and venture development
organization, and substantial human and financial capital
resources. Bolstered by its expanding operational infrastructure,
Flagship has developed a strong track record of originating
first-in-kind scientific ventures that consistently yield
significant financial and societal returns.
Using innovation as its primary currency, Flagship Pioneering
has created and developed more than 75 scientific ventures,
resulting in $19 billion in aggregate
value, 500+ issued patents, 50+ clinical trials and 16 IPOs since
its launch in 2000. Flagship team members fill the roles of
scientific co-founders, early-stage entrepreneurial leaders and
financiers of every venture the firm creates. The current output of
Flagship-founded ventures stands at 6-8 per year.
Flagship Pioneering's new corporate identity includes a new
logo, the tagline "Pioneering scientific ventures for life", and
website www.FlagshipPioneering.com. Additionally, the company
recently opened its new headquarters located at 55 Cambridge
Parkway in Cambridge, MA.
Flagship Closes Special Opportunities Fund
Flagship Pioneering also announced today that it will deploy into
select portfolio companies $285
million in capital from an innovative new fund, Flagship
Ventures Opportunities Fund I, L.P.
"Flagship's operational scale and resources for founding and
launching the next generation of breakthrough ventures have
recently expanded. Through the innovative, opportunities-fund
structure, we will now substantially increase investment into the
growth-phase of select ventures and fuel an accelerated path to
value creation while increasing Flagship's return on pioneering
innovation," said Afeyan.
The Flagship Ventures Opportunities Fund joins five other funds
under Flagship's management. Together the family of funds that
exceeds $1.75 billion in capital has
consistently outperformed comparable funds.
2016: A Year of Unprecedented Innovation
With the closure of the Flagship Ventures Opportunity Fund,
Flagship and its portfolio companies are set to end the year with
unprecedented impact. 2016 highlights include:
- Moderna Therapeutics, the leader in a new generation of
medicines based on messenger RNA, announced its plans to build a
state-of-the-art manufacturing facility in Massachusetts to support the company's ongoing
and planned clinical trials. Moderna also raised private and
strategic capital in excess of $500
million during 2016 and has set records for capital raised
and valuation achieved as a private biotech company. At the same
time, Moderna was recently recognized as a Top Employer by
Science Magazine as well as The Boston Globe;
- Three of Flagship's trailblazing ventures successfully
completed IPOs – Editas Medicine, Selecta
Biosciences, and Syros Pharmaceuticals;
- Novomer, a Flagship portfolio company that converts
renewable feedstock into cost-competitive chemicals and polymers,
sold its Converge product line and technology to Saudi Aramco at a
value of $100 million;
- Indigo Agriculture raised $100
million in a Series C financing, the largest private round
in the agriculture technology sector history, and launched its
first commercial product for water-efficient cotton;
- Denali Therapeutics raised $130
million in Series B financing to advance its work in
defeating neurodegenerative diseases;
- Michael Rosenblatt, M.D. joined
Flagship from Merck as the company's first-ever chief medical
officer, responsible for leading global clinical development and
medical affairs for the organization; and
- Flagship Pioneering's six funds totalling $1.75 billion under management outperformed
industry averages; Fund IV L.P. recorded the best performance of
the year out of 46 venture funds tracked by Cambridge Associates
from 2010 across all sectors.
Entering 2017, Flagship expects to see accelerating growth
within its current portfolio companies and a robust output of
first-in-kind ventures under development within its in-house
innovation foundry. Several portfolio companies are poised for
their initial public offerings while others are expected to forge
strategic corporate partnerships with global market leaders.
About Flagship Pioneering
Flagship Pioneering
conceives, creates, resources and develops first-in-category life
sciences companies. Its institutional innovation foundry, Flagship
VentureLabs®, is where Flagship's team of scientific entrepreneurs
systematically evolve enterprising ideas into new fields, or
previously undiscovered areas of science into real-world inventions
and ventures. Since its launch in 2000, the firm has applied its
hypothesis-driven innovation process to originate and foster nearly
75 scientific ventures, resulting in $19
billion in aggregate value, 500+ issued patents and more
than 50 clinical trials for novel therapeutic agents. Flagship's
portfolio includes pioneering ventures that are transforming human
health and sustainability, including: Agios
Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AGIO), Seres Therapeutics (NASDAQ:
MCRB), Editas Medicine (NASDAQ: EDIT) and Syros Pharmaceuticals
(NASDAQ: SYRS), as well as private companies including Moderna
Therapeutics, Indigo Agriculture and Axcella Health. Flagship has
ongoing corporate innovation alliances with several market leaders,
including: AstraZeneca, Bayer Crop Science and Nestlé Health
Science. To learn more about Flagship Pioneering, please
visit our new website www.FlagshipPioneering.com.
CONTACT:
Allison Gracey, Edelman
+1 (202) 326-1762
Allison.Gracey@edelman.com
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SOURCE Flagship Ventures