Top Biotech VC Investors in 2021 Based on Investments at IPO

• Insider analyzed more than 90 IPOs to find the top venture-capital firms that led biotech in 2021.
• Arch, Novo Holdings, and Flagship Pioneering topped the list with more than $1 billion in equity.
• Several firms have already raised new funds and laid out investment plans for next year.

The biotech market has set a record for the number of initial public offerings in 2021.

More than 90 companies have gone public, up from 81 in 2020 and 49 in 2019, according to SVB Leerink analysts. So far, the companies have raised a total of $12.2 billion in capital.

Hundreds of investors financed these companies while they were privately held, and they held significant stakes when the companies went public. Insider analyzed corporate filings to identify the venture-capital firms that shaped these biotechs and are positioned to build on their success in 2022.

Eighteen firms held shares worth $400 million or more in biotech companies that went public this year. Six top firms held more than $1 billion in equity: Arch Venture Partners, Novo Holdings, Flagship Pioneering, RA Capital Management, Perceptive Advisors, and SoftBank.

Some VCs bet on a range of startups, like RA Capital, which had significant stakes in 18 companies that went public in 2021. Other firms focused on venture creation — where they aggressively invest in a startup’s founding and early years — made the list with just a few investments. Third-ranked Flagship Pioneering, for instance, was driven by just two IPOs in 2021.

The analysis included 93 biotechs listed on the IPO trackers managed by BioPharma Dive and Endpoints News as of December 6. Special-purpose acquisition companies, or SPACs, were not factored into the equity holdings because of different disclosure requirements but were noted in our assessment of the VCs. The investments we included were those disclosed in company S-1 filings, and the value of the holdings was based on the companies’ initial pricing at the time of their IPOs. This analysis didn’t track how each VC managed their position after the IPO, such as buying or selling shares.