Peninsula VC adds more than $100 million, brings on former Pfizer exec as partner

A leading biotech venture capital firm said it's added more than $100 million in capital and a seasoned industry voice in former Pfizer Inc. executive Uwe Schoenbeck.

The new cash, from limited partners the Menlo Park-based firm wouldn't disclose, increases Canaan's newly raised capital since early 2023 to more than $1 billion. The overall figure includes the firm's Canaan XIII fund, which is designed to support seed-stage and Series A funding through merger, acquisition, initial public offering or other exits, but the new cash is not dedicated to any specific Canaan fund.

Canaan's fresh capital is a sign of warming in a nearly three-year biotech winter that has included VCs taking longer to defreeze investment decisions, Generalist Wall Street investors meanwhile have largely abandoned biotech after a run-up in the first year of the Covid-19 pandemic.

The lack of funding has led several companies to cut jobs, shed real estate or shelve drug-development programs, but venture-backed biopharma companies raised $6.8 billion in the first three months of this year — the largest collective raise since first-half 2022 — reported Stat from early data compiled by HSBC.

Canaan's $1 billion-plus in new capital is split between health care, particularly Canaan XIII's focus on cancer, immunology and neurology as well as cardiology and respiratory drugs, and new and existing tech investments in enterprise software, financial technology and consumer technology, and frontier technologies, such as artificial intelligence.

Among Canaan's big Bay Area wins have been migraine drug developer Labrys Biologics, which was sold to Teva Pharmaceuticals for $825 million, financial services company LendingClub, whose 2014 IPO topped $1 billion, on-demand grocery company Instacart and skin drug developer Dermira.

In all, Canaan companies have had 70 IPOs and 145 mergers and acquisitions. It has more than $7 billion under management.

Canaan has not yet deployed any cash from Canaan XIII; it expects to invest in 15-16 companies over the next few years, a spokesperson said.

Schoenbeck's hiring played a role in the new capital raise in that he will close deals, the spokesperson said, so incremental capital was raised to increase capacity for more investments. He was involved in Canaan's participation in a $132 million Series B round, announced earlier this month, for San Diego cancer drug developer Alterome Therapeutics Inc.

"I am excited to join Canaan and bring my expertise and network to the team," Schoenbeck, who is based in New York, said in a statement. "Canaan's outstanding reputation and track record of identifying and enabling cutting-edge science of high potential were key drivers in my decision to join the firm, and I am looking forward to further expanding on both as part of the team."

With Pfizer, Wyeth and Boehringer Ingelheim, Schoenbeck has lived through cycles in his 25 years in the life sciences and health care industries. Most recently with Pfizer, he was chief scientific officer of the drug maker's emerging science and innovation team and was key to the company's collaboration with BioNTech SE that resulted in commercialization of the mRNA Covid-19 vaccine Comirnaty. He was vice president of emerging R&D innovation at Wyeth before Pfizer's $68 billion acquisition in 2009. He was vice president of cardiovascular research at Boehringer Ingelheim.

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Canaan Partners

"Uwe's data-driven approach to decisions, proven ability to enable others to succeed, love of novel science and quick ability to come to an informed point of view stood out to us," Canaan general partner Julie Grant said in a LinkedIn post Wednesday morning. "He is brilliant, kind, direct and understated about his long list of accomplishments. We laugh together as a team. These are exactly the characteristics we seek when partnering with entrepreneurs and scientific founders to build important medicines and companies."