The Kansas Bioscience Authority (KBA) has increased the amount of venture capital available to innovative Kansas bioscience businesses, to lead the state’s economic recovery approving a commitment to invest $50m in eight private venture capital funds.
The company said that to qualify for KBA investment, eight funds are required to have a substantial presence in the state, including establishing Kansas offices. Additionally, the fund managers must each raise a minimum of $25m from private and institutional sources, effectively leveraging the KBA’s investment to $250m.
The company added that the funds will work closely with the KBA’s Heartland BioVentures program, which provides business assistance and financial resources to high potential early stage bioscience companies to help better position them to raise private growth capital to bring globally competitive products and services to market.
According to the company, these funds provide a range of expertise in the bioscience sectors in which Kansas has existing strengths such as animal health, bioenergy, biomaterials, plant biology, and human health. Working with multiple funds also exponentially expands the venture capital network focused
on bioscience companies at varying stages of development in Kansas and provides the greatest assurance of increased venture capital flow into the state.
Tom Thornton, president of KBA, said: “Capital is the lifeblood of bioscience companies. Innovators all across Kansas are developing world-class bioscience products and services only to see their true societal and economic development potential suffer for a lack of early stage capital. With the KBA’s investment commitments, Kansas is attracting the attention of some of the most respected venture capital firms in the country to help high growth potential bioscience companies in Kansas access growth capital to gain full-scale commercialization.”