Peregrine Ventures Launches New $300M Fund For Life Science Startups

Israeli venture capital firm Peregrine Ventures announced on Tuesday the launch of Peregrine Growth, a new $300 million growth fund focused on late-stage life science companies.

The firm closed $101 million of the planned $300 million fund with participation from leading Israeli institutional investors. It aims to raise additional funds from institutional investors and family offices worldwide.

“We’re very excited to launch this new fund and believe that late stage life science companies present an excellent investment opportunity,” said Eyal Lifschitz, managing partner and co-founder at Peregrine Ventures. “This new fund focusses Peregrine’s nearly 20 years’ experience in life science investing at all stages, on companies that are at an incredibly exciting time: on the cusp of an  IPO or M&A. Our deep familiarity with the life science industry and close ties with strategic partners, allow us to know which late stage company to support and the exact timing of the investment that will yield the best returns for our partners.”

Peregrine was founded in 2001 by serial entrepreneurs Eyal Lifschitz and Boaz Lifschitz. In the 1990s, the two brothers had co-founded the biomedical device companies Visioncare Ophthalmic Technologies and BioControl, and also led the business development efforts of companies such as PharmaSys (acquired by Elan Corp.) and ECR (acquired by AVX Corp.

After the establishment of Peregrine, the co-founders were joined by partners Tamir Tal Lior Shahory, David Eldar and Tal Carasso. The firm has become a prominent investor in Israel’s medical, life science and biotech sectors with a specific focus on medical devices. Peregrine invests in sectors such as medical devices, pharma and digital health. 

Peregrine Growth will invest $20 to $30 million per funding round, with a strong emphasis on companies that are on the verge of an IPO (initial public offering) or M&A (mergers and acquisitions).)

Peregrine Growth is Peregrine Ventures’ fifth fund, and first growth fund, and follows Peregrine IV, which closed in December 2019 after raising $115 million. The performance of Peregrine’s portfolio places the firm in the upper quartile of IRR results for all venture capital firms in global benchmarks.

“With the renewed focus on biotech, health, and life science in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis, the potential of Peregrine Growth is great. Many industry executives are aware that insufficient funds have been invested in healthcare and pharma technologies, and therefore expect that the life science sector will experience significant growth over the next decade. Institutional investors are taking note of the trend and will be allocating a larger percentage of their investments toward life science,” said Lifschitz.

Peregrine’s portfolio companies completed exits totaling more than $2 billion to date, among them Valtech and Neovasc, which are among the largest exits in the field of medical devices in Israel’s history. Additionally, Peregrine’s portfolio includes mature growth companies worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The fund has invested in and helped develop numerous successful companies in the medtech field, including medical devices, biotech, pharma, esthetics, and digital health, such as Memic, CartiHeal, Cordio and Magneto. 

A number of Peregrine’s current portfolio companies have pivoted to use their technologies to combat the coronavirus, a statement said. Among them, Cordio’s noninvasive technology is able to remotely monitor and diagnose the status of COVID-19 patients based on the analysis of their speech pattern sampled with the use of a cellular application.