Venture Fundraising and Investment in Healthcare -

U.S. healthcare venture fundraising reached a record $9.6 billion in 2018, continuing a four-year upward trend. This was driven by excellent returns in the sector, especially in biopharma and medical devices. Capital-raising was dominated by large life science funds such as Foresite and Versant, and by new fund spin-offs led by veteran life science investors like Westlake Village and Samsara. In addition, generalists Venrock and Norwest continued to invest in this sector and were joined by new entrants such as Lightspeed and 8VC.