John Freund
Founder & Managing Director @ Skyline Ventures
San Francisco Bay Area, United States
John Freund is a Series B investor at Skyline Ventures in San Francisco Bay Area focused on Biotechnology and Therapeutics. John has been involved in founding, financing, managing and advising healthcare companies since 1982. He began his career at Morgan Stanley in New York, where he co-founded the Healthcare Group in the Corporate Finance Department and was later the original healthcare partner at Morgan Stanley Ventures. He then was an operating executive for sixyears as Executive Vice President of Acuson Corporation (an NYSE-traded company that is now part of Siemens), where he ran Marketing and led the cross-functional management of the company's product introductions. In 1995, he licensed the technology that served as the core of Intuitive Surgical, Inc. (NASDAQ:ISRG), co-founded Intuitive and raised its initial venture capital. He then spent two years as the West Coast partner at the Private Equity group of Chancellor Capital Management (now INVESCO), before founding Skyline in 1997. He has experience with most of the major sectors of the healthcare investment market including medical devices, information technology, small molecule and protein therapeutics, biochips and diagnostics. He received a B.A. from Harvard College, an M.D. from Harvard Medical School, and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, where he was a Baker Scholar and won the Loeb Fellowship in Finance. He was the co-author of The Official MBA Handbook, which spent 16 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list in 1982. He loves golf and tennis, and is an ardent New York Yankee fan, always a problem at Skyline when the Bombers play the Red Sox.
- Total investments:
- 3
- Last investment:
- Lead investor:
- 67%
Last updated:
For AI agents: llms.txt
Industries John Freund invests in
Stages John Freund invests in
Countries John Freund invests in
Contacts
| Type | Contact | Validation |
|---|---|---|
| Work email | ||
| Personal email | ||
| Work phone | ||
| Personal phone | ||
| Socials |
Investment Focus
Industry
- Biotechnology 3 (100%)
- Therapeutics 2 (67%)
- Pharmaceutical 2 (67%)
- Medical 1 (33%)
- Health Care 1 (33%)
Stage
- Series B 2 (67%)
- Post-IPO Equity 1 (33%)
Investments
| Company | Description | Round | Links |
|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Pionyr Immunotherapeutics is developing cancer immunotherapies that target the tumor microenvironment to enhance the body’s antitumor immunity. The company is exploiting novel target discovery and antibody generation platform technologies to create the next generation of immuno-oncology therapeutics. The company’s approach, Myeloid Tuning™, isdesigned to enhance the immune system’s anti-tumor response by altering the cellular infiltrate of the tumor microenvironment with high specificity. | $62M / Series B / Dec 13, 2017 | |
|
|
MAKO Surgical is a medical device company, markets its advanced robotic arm solution, joint specific applications for the knee and hip, and orthopedic implants for orthopedic procedures in the United States and internationally. The company offers MAKOplasty, a restorative surgical solution that enables orthopedic surgeons to treat patient specificosteoarthritic disease. It also provides robotic arm interactive orthopedic system (RIO) consisting of a tactile robotic arm utilizing an integrated bone cutting instrument; and a patient specific visualization component, which offers pre-operative and intra-operative guidance to the orthopedic surgeon, enabling tissue sparing bone removal, and accurate implant insertion and alignment.In 2011, The company was named the No.1 on the Technology Fast 500 as the fastest growing technology company by Deloitte and received the CSSEC Award for loyal, customer-focused staff members presented by the Technology Services Industry Association and ACE Award (Achievement in Customer Excellence) from MarketTools and Fast Tech Award as one of the 25 fastest growing technology companies in South Florida by South Florida Business Journal.MAKO Surgical was founded in 2004 and is headquartered in Florida, USA. | $60M / Post-IPO Equity / Oct 31, 2008 | |
|
|
Advion is a global company that offers a variety of systems and consumables for life science research. Its clientele is comprised of pharmaceutical companies, government life science research agencies, and universities. Advion provides a diverse portfolio of microfluidic and mass spec-based products for the life science industry. It was founded in1993. The company is headquartered in New York, United States. | $15M / Series B / May 09, 2002 |
Co-Investors
About Skyline Ventures
Skyline Ventures, formed in 1997, is a nationally-known venture capital firm that specializes in investing in outstanding product-focused healthcare companies. Their areas of expertise include small molecule and protein therapeutics; medical devices; diagnostics; and technologies that facilitate drug discovery and life science research.They allhave MD or PhD degrees, and hands-on operating experience in various start-up healthcare companies that later went public. As a result, they are known for the value they offer their companies, as board members and shareholders. They are also known for being fundamental, extremely patient investors.The days when momentum investing drove the public biotechnology markets are long gone, and they are glad that they are. The public markets demand data, not dreams. As a result, it is data that drives their decision process. In considering a new investment, they focus on whether there is adequate proof of principle to believe that the company's products will work.In therapeutics, for example, they look closely at whether the biochemistry, animal models and any human data make it more probable than average that the product will eventually prove to have an important therapeutic benefit. The size of the potential market and the quality of the management or founding team are critical in their evaluation as well.Skyline Ventures are value and return driven, more than driven by the stage of the investment. Most often they lead or co-lead a company's first or second institutional venture round, but have previously helped found companies and invested in PIPEs and leveraged buyouts.In October 2007, they completed raising Skyline V, which has $350 million in committed capital. They have approximately $800 million under management. They target investments of $15-35 million per portfolio company over the life of the company.
Skyline Ventures Contacts
| Name | Phone | Socials | |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Eric M Gordon
Founder & Partner
|
|||
|
John Freund
Founder & Managing Director
|
|||
|
Stephen J. Hoffman
Managing Director
|
|||
|
Yasunori Kaneko
Managing Director
|
|||
Access 48,091 investors
822 industries, 177 countries. Updated daily. Emails and phones included.
Browse database — It's Free!Find investors for your startup
Search 48,091 investors by industry and country. Emails and phones included.
Similar Investors
Similar stage
Recommended lists
FAQ
What does John Freund invest in?
John Freund invests primarily in Biotechnology, Therapeutics and Pharmaceutical startups, most often at Series B and Post-IPO Equity stage. Most of the 3 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.
How do I contact John Freund?
Public channels for John Freund include LinkedIn. For a verified work email and phone number, create a free Shizune account — contact data is searched across 20+ sources and validated before delivery, so your outreach lands in the right inbox.
When did John Freund last invest?
The most recent investment recorded for John Freund closed in Dec 2017. Shizune tracks 3 investments in total for this profile, including round sizes, stages and portfolio companies, all sourced from confirmed public funding rounds and refreshed monthly.
Is Shizune's investor data accurate?
Yes — every stat on this profile is calculated from confirmed public funding rounds monitored across hundreds of sources since 2020. This profile was last refreshed in Aug 2026 and is updated monthly. Spotted something off? Use the “Suggest an edit” link near the top of the page.
Contact your first 100 investors today
Find who invests in your industry, stage, and country. Download investor list with emails in 5 minutes.
Find investors — It's Free!