On this week's episode of LA Venture, hear from Sean Harper, founding managing director of Westlake Village BioPartners, which has two new funds totaling $500 million that's catalyzing the L.A. biotech ecosystem. Harper is the former head of research and development at biopharmaceutical company Amgen. He shares his focus on therapeutics to improve human lives and starting Westlake with Beth Seidenberg.
<h2>Key Takeaways</h2>
<ul class="ee-ul">
<li>Harper believes Google's <a href="https://deepmind.com/blog/article/alphafold-a-solution-to-a-50-year-old-grand-challenge-in-biology" target="_blank">AlphaFold</a> and protein folding will be transformative, but doesn't want to overhype its potential.</li>
<li>Harper points out that a lot of what's making biology more of a quantitative, predictive science and translatable into new therapies for people comes from the introduction of non-biology technologies like robotics, x-ray or crystallography.</li>
<li>Westlake Village BioPartners has partnered with Alexandria Venture Investments which has helped to provide turnkey available laboratory space. This should help companies get set up quickly.</li>
</ul>
<blockquote>
<em></em>"At some point, it's going to be possible to essentially reset the immune system. So it no longer believes that self antigens are foreign. If somebody brings forward a technology like that, it'll be transformative."<em> — Sean Harper<br>
</em><em></em>
</blockquote>
<p>
<em><strong></strong></em><strong>Sean Harper</strong> attended medical school at the University of California at San Francisco, completed internal medicine and gastroenterology training at Massachusetts General Hospital, and was a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Nobel Laurette Phillip A. Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He held a number of key leadership positions at Amgen.
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<em>Want to hear more of L.A. Venture? Listen on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/la-venture-venture-capital-vc/id1471701230" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/la-venture" target="_blank">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2syPj1jttbIHjHIEwSrApH" target="_blank">Spotify</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</em><br>
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Pontifax AgTech's Gil Demeter on Investing in the Next Generation of Robotics and Bioscience
Jan 15 2021
On this week's episode of LA Venture, hear from Gil Demeter, the vice president at Pontifax AgTech. We had a great discussion about next generation robotics and bioscience. Pontifax AgTech has over $465 million in assets under management, and is one of the largest food and agtech funds in the world.
<h2>Key Takeaways</h2><div></div><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Pontifax is a growth-stage investor in food and agriculture technology, and invests somewhere in between late-stage venture and early-stage growth.</li><li>Typically, their investments range from $15 to $25 million in initial capital and typically twice that over the lifetime of the company.<em> </em></li><li>Gil notes that farmers are pretty sophisticated when it comes to new tech and utilize multiple pieces of software. Growers don't necessarily have the whole institution backed up to analyze it.</li><li>Gil says labor and water are the two biggest issues for growers, distributors, and many others in the agricultural ecosystem.</li><li>When it comes to agriculture,<em> </em>gene editing is huge, as is innovation around natural, usually organic solutions to spur growth in crops without having to put more inputs, chemicals or expensive seed into the process to yield a better result<i>.</i></li><li>Food tech has blown up in the last five years and intersects with interest in health tech - including food and diet.</li></ul><p><em><strong></strong></em><strong>Gil Demeter </strong>is vice president at Pontifax AgTech. </p><p><em>Want to hear more of L.A. Venture? Listen on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/la-venture-venture-capital-vc/id1471701230" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/la-venture" target="_blank">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2syPj1jttbIHjHIEwSrApH" target="_blank">Spotify</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</em><br></p>
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For this week's episode of LA Venture, hear from Shahin Farshchi, partner at Lux Capital. Lux invests in emerging science and technology ventures at the outermost edges of what is possible. Farshchi has fascinating insight on automation, autonomous cars, AI and more.
<h2>Key Takeaways</h2><ul class="ee-ul"><li>Lux is not afraid to invest pre-product, and sometimes pre-company. Lux will write $10 million to $15 million checks for top entrepreneurs or executives they believe in, even if their company doesn't exist yet. </li><li>Farshchi has seen an increase in deep-tech founders with typically capital intense companies, partnering with investors early in order to access deep pockets from day zero, instead of later in the fundraising timeline.</li><li>Farshchi expects that while the trend of automation will continue and will lead to job elimination, those jobs are usually tough to fill, and the new jobs created will be easier to fill and more attractive. That said, he believes workers must be educated by employers and educational institutions to be ready for the next generation of jobs.</li></ul><div></div><p><strong><em> </em>Shahin Farshchi</strong> is a partner at Lux Capital and has a PhD in electrical engineering. He empowers entrepreneurs aiming to accelerate humanity towards a brighter future through feats of engineering. He is passionate about artificial intelligence, robots, space, cars and engines—pretty much anything you might find in an episode of "Star Trek."</p><p><em>Want to hear more of L.A. Venture? Listen on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/la-venture-venture-capital-vc/id1471701230" target="_blank">Apple Podcasts</a>, <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/la-venture" target="_blank">Stitcher</a>, <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2syPj1jttbIHjHIEwSrApH" target="_blank">Spotify</a> or wherever you get your podcasts.</em><br></p>
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