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The report follows.
What happens when you analyze 30,486 verified biotech venture deal events across 517 verified equity investors from 2015 to 2026? You get a clear picture of which firms come back for round two — and which write one check and stop. We sorted every investor with a meaningful biotech portfolio on a single metric: their follow-on rate, the percentage of their portfolio companies in which they participate in two or more rounds. Tier 1 sits at 50% or higher. Tier 2 covers 30 to 49%. Tier 3 sits below 30%. Grant agencies excluded. Minimum portfolio: five companies.
of the 517 verified biotech equity investors meeting our minimum portfolio threshold follow on in fewer than half of their portfolio companies. Only 51 — about one in ten — re-invest in 50% or more of what they back.
Source: The Biotech Capital Report 2026, Phase 3 Search.
Of the 517 verified equity investors meeting the minimum threshold, here is how the universe breaks down.
Follow-on rate = percentage of an investor's portfolio companies in which they participated in two or more rounds at distinct dates, computed across the 2015-2026 observation window. Grant-only agencies (NIH and sub-institutes, NSF, US Department of Defense, BARDA, ARPA-H, equivalent international agencies) excluded — grant funding cycles are not comparable to venture follow-on behavior. Minimum portfolio for inclusion: five companies. Sample-size confidence is tagged on every published row: Robust (n≥25), Standard (n=15-24), Adequate (n=10-14), Limited (n=5-9). Of the 517 firms, 157 sit at Robust or Standard, 88 at Adequate, 272 at Limited — about half the universe is in the noisier band, which reflects the long tail of specialist and emerging-manager funds. Tier boundaries: Tier 1 at 50% or higher, Tier 2 from 30 to 49%, Tier 3 below 30%. Follow-on is a slow-burning metric — it requires a multi-year observation window to register. The 11-year window is chosen for that reason. Round coverage is sensitive to source data completeness. Firms with documented multi-round patterns may read lower than their actual behavior where rounds are missing from coverage. The dataset is compiled by Phase 3 Search.
Four visualizations covering the full 517-firm universe. Aggregate views first; firm-level scatter where sample-size confidence is encoded visually.
Where the money behaves like venture, and where it behaves like crossover or asset management.
All 13 Tier 1 firms at Standard or Robust sample (n≥15).
Every firm in the dataset. Portfolio breadth on the X axis, follow-on rate on the Y. Bubble size scales with portfolio size. Color encodes tier. Limited-sample firms (n=5-9) appear with reduced opacity.
The largest bubbles in the top-right are absent — the law of large numbers caps follow-on rate at scale. The largest portfolios in the dataset (RA Capital at n=188, OrbiMed at n=139, Cormorant at n=111) sit in Tier 2 and Tier 3.
Conviction (X) and outcome (Y) are different metrics. Each tier occupies a different region — and the two metrics do not correlate as strongly as a simple "good investor / bad investor" frame would suggest.
Tier 3 firms (red) cluster low-left on follow-on but spread vertically on exit rate. They enter at the exit stage by design. Tier 1 firms (green) cluster mid-to-high on follow-on with mid-range exit rates. Tier 2 firms (amber) sit in between.
The numbers behind the two ends of the tier list.
| Behavior | Tier 1 · Long-term | Tier 3 · Single-round |
|---|---|---|
| Firms in tier | 51 | 304 |
| Median follow-on rate | 57% | 15% |
| Pooled exit rate (acquired + public) | 37% | 39% |
| Typical structures | Venture vehicles, corporate VCs with long mandates | Crossover funds, hedge funds, asset managers, pharma BDs, public-market vehicles, late-stage PE |
Purely observational — what the numbers show.
Across the 517 firms meeting the minimum threshold, 466 have follow-on rates below 50%. Only 51 are at 50% or higher.
These names span asset managers, crossover funds, healthcare systems, government and non-profit vehicles, and several pharma corporate venture arms. The structural commonality is single-shot capital by mandate, not a single sector. Specific firms are available in the Follow-On Explorer companion page, suppressed here pending independent verification.
SR One (51%) clears Tier 1; Illumina Ventures (48%) and MRL Ventures Fund (31%) sit in Tier 2 — all re-investing well above their parent-company BD desks. Direct pharma activity from Merck, AbbVie, Sanofi, and others shows materially lower follow-on, reflecting strategic optionality rather than financial commitment.
The largest portfolios in the full universe sit in Tier 2 or Tier 3 — RA Capital Management (188 companies, 30% FO), OrbiMed (139, 46%), Cormorant Asset Management (111, 27%). The largest Tier 1 portfolios — ARCH (109) and Atlas (66) — sit right at the Tier 1 boundary. Funds with the broadest deal footprints find it mathematically harder to sustain high follow-on rates; the law of large numbers caps the percentage.
A firm investing in Series A in 2024 has limited opportunity to participate in Series B by 2026. The window must be wide enough for multi-round behavior to register. Shorter windows systematically undercount follow-on, regardless of source-data completeness. This report uses a 2015-2026 window for that reason.
Phase 3 Search is a global life sciences executive search firm. We are not investors. We do not advise on capital. Our craft is search. This report is part of the capital intelligence work we publish for the operator and board community we serve.
Every engagement begins with a diagnostic. Before we define a search profile, we work with the board and CEO to understand the company's stage, dominant operational risk, and the leadership mandate the role actually carries — not the one written on a job description. The right hire is the one calibrated to the work that needs doing now whilst preparing for what is around the corner.
CMC and Quality leadership specialists, with a broader practice spanning CEO, CTO, SVP Technical Operations, Process Development, Manufacturing, Analytical, Regulatory, and Clinical Operations.
112+ CMC and Quality leadership placements since 2018. Working with biotech founders, boards, and the venture firms backing them.
A 31-page board governance framework for evaluating technical leadership alignment in biopharma. Maps how CTO emphasis shifts across five stages of development. Covers CRL valuation data, board governance gaps, KPIs, and a board-ready calibration tool.
Built with an advisory panel of seventeen CxO-level technical operations leaders.
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