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Friday, July 9, 2010
Google Ventures puts money, Yeshwant into Calif. stem cell firm
By Rodney H. Brown
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Google Ventures has placed one of its local life sciences experts on his first board, as part of their lead in the investment in a $22 million Series B equity round for South San Francisco stem cell company iPierian Inc. Krishna Yeshwant, a partner at Google Ventures and a resident at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, will join the iPierian board.
In addition to Google Ventures, new backers included Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and ATEL Ventures, and previous investors participating included Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Highland Capital Partners, MPM Capital and FinTech Global Capital. Since it was founded in 2007, iPierian has raised $54 million in equity capital.
Born in Boston, iPierian merged with California’s iZumi Bio Inc. in July of last year and pulled up stakes for South San Francisco. IPierian’s scientific founders were Harvard University faculty members George Daley, Douglas Melton and Lee Rubin.
In February, iPierian tapped bi-coastal life sciences veteran Michael Venuti as its new CEO. Venuti served on the board of Cambridge’s Infinity Pharmaceuticals Inc. after it acquired his firm Discovery Partners in 2006. He also worked for Maryland’s Celera Genomics Group and received his bachelor’s degree from Dartmouth College and his doctorate in organic chemistry from MIT.
According to Google Ventures’ website, this is the first board seat for Yeshwant. He said in a previous interview that Google Ventures would be looking at investing in life sciences firms, with a particular emphasis on platform technologies.
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