Photo by Ilumina
Photo from Arch Venture Partners

Robert Nelsen

Co-Founder, Managing Director, Investor

Arch Venture Partners

POSITION

Co-Founder, Managing Director, Investor

COMPANY

Arch Venture Partners

COUNTRY

USA

Website

Arch Venture Partners

SCENE

Business

SOCIAL

Twitter

What makes Robert Nelsen a Global Shaker?

Robert Nelsen is the managing director and co-founder of ARCH Venture Partners. Known by many as the top venture capitalist in the biotechnology world, he ranked at #33 on the Forbes Midas List in 2019. He was also a director at the National Venture Capital Association.

He has invested in more than 20 companies that are now worth over $1 billion.

In March 2018, cancer immunotherapy treatment maker Juno Therapeutics was sold for $9 billion; over the next few months, Unity Biotech, Rubius Therapeutics and Hua Medicine went public.

“I think if you have the right science and the right team, they can use a lot of money and put it to work,” he told Xconomy. “People will always ask us, “How come you’re raising so much money for these companies—is it just because you can?” And I always tell them that we don’t actually think of it that way. We think of it as shareholder recruitment. So we’re just trying to find the long-term shareholders and then have them invest the minimum amount that they can to get them in, but for them to be invested in a way that we think that they’re going to stay with the company.”

Robert is a director of Vir Bio, GRAIL, Sana Biotechnology, Beam Therapeutics, Unity Biotechnology, Denali Therapeutics and Arivale. He has previously served as a trustee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute and the Institute for Systems Biology.

He received a bachelor’s from the University of Puget Sound in economics and biology and an MBA from the University of Chicago.

Tags: biotechnology, VC

Last updated: July 29, 2019