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Andreessen Horowitz Raises $450 Million for Life Sciences Fund

Andreessen Horowitz Raises $450 Million for Life Sciences Fund

(Bloomberg) -- Venture firm Andreessen Horowitz is doubling down on its commitment to next-generation life sciences with a $450 million fund, more than double the size of a 2015 fund that focused on the field.

The new fund will back companies that apply artificial intelligence to areas such as health care and food science -- what the firm calls “the intersection of biology and engineering.” Some of Andreessen’s existing portfolio companies in that area include Freenome, which is working on blood tests for cancer detection, and Apeel Sciences, which uses agricultural byproducts to improve the resilience of fruits and vegetables.

Partners Jorge Conde and Vijay Pande will run the fund, which is separate from Andreessen Horowitz’s flagship funds. The firm raised $1.5 billion last year for its Fund V. 

Pharmaceuticals and biotechnology have accounted for 13 percent of this year’s venture spending through the third quarter, compared with 9 percent for all of 2016, according to the National Venture Capital Association and Pitchbook.

To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah McBride in San Francisco at smcbride24@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.net, Andrew Pollack, Alistair Barr

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