# Novartis Venture Fund

> Novartis Venture Fund is a VC fund backing Biotechnology and Health Care. See 219 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: Basel, Switzerland
- Total investments: 219
- Last investment: Jul 2026
- Lead investor: 26%
- Fund size: $200M
- Last fund: Jan 2009
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1406?trk=prof-exp-company-name
- X (Twitter): https://twitter.com/nvf_vc
- Website: http://www.nvfund.com/

Novartis Venture Fund is a VC fund in Basel focused on Biotechnology and Health Care. Novartis Venture Fund's primary focus is on the development of novel therapeutics and platforms. They balance the therapeutic focus with investments in medical devices, diagnostics, or drug delivery systems. In their investments, they look for unmet needs and clinical impact, novel proprietary science, an understanding of mechanism, managementand board experience, and capital efficiency in the program.Novartis Venture Fund prefers to have their initial investment at the early stage to build the company and follow with additional investment in pace with the company's progress. Their approach involves larger focused investments, with anticipation of total investments up to USD 30 to 50 million per company over its life, but it can be as little as 100,000 USD to get started. They plan to increase their activities to lead or co-lead deals further and remain open to participating in larger syndicates.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for Novartis Venture Fund. Shizune tracks 11 team members at Novartis Venture Fund. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/novartis-venture-fund?utm_source=investor_profile

## Round sizes

| Stage | Round size |
| --- | --- |
| Series A | $5.1M–$81M |
| Series B | $11M–$120M |
| Series C | $9M–$75M |

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Biotechnology | 112 | 51% |
| Health Care | 74 | 34% |
| Therapeutics | 47 | 21% |
| Medical | 34 | 16% |
| Pharmaceutical | 30 | 14% |

35 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series B | 60 | 27% |
| Series A | 58 | 26% |
| Series C | 32 | 15% |
| Funding Round | 13 | 6% |
| Series D | 11 | 5% |

9 stages tracked in total.

### Country

| Country | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| United States | 81 | 37% |
| Switzerland | 13 | 6% |
| United Kingdom | 11 | 5% |
| France | 3 | 1% |
| Germany | 3 | 1% |

18 countries tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Aaron Nelson | Principal & Managing Director | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/aaron-nelson |
| Anja König | Global Head Novartis Venture Fund | 13 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/dr-anja-knig |
| Bart Dzikowski | Managing Director, Head of Transactions & Legal | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/bart-dzikowski |
| Florent Gros | Managing Director | 2 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/florent-gros |
| Florent Gros | Managing Director | 12 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/florent-gros-4c33 |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Fore Biotherapeutics | We are a precision oncology company pioneering the development of cancer therapies guided by our proprietary functional genomics. | $67.4M | Series D | Jul 07, 2026 |  |
| Sidewinder Therapeutics | Sidewinder Therapeutics develops bispecific antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) aimed at treating solid tumors. Their mission is to create life-saving therapies through precision therapeutics. | $137M | Series B | Apr 08, 2026 |  |
| EpiBiologics | EpiBiologics develops first-in-class antibody based targeted therapies against membrane and extracellular proteins that drive underlying disease biology. | $107M | Series B | Jan 08, 2026 |  |
| FoRx Therapeutics | FoRx Therapeutics is a recently incorporated privately-held company aiming to develop first-in-class compounds for cancer treatment. FoRx focuses on drugging key molecular targets involved in DNA replication stress, as a new approach towards the development of targeted anticancer drugs. | $50M | Series A | Dec 18, 2025 |  |
| Protego Biopharma | Protego Biopharma develops therapeutics based on the clear human genetic link, excellent human safety profile, proof-of-principle efficacy. The company was founded in 2011 and is headquartered in San Diego, California. | $130M | Series B | Dec 01, 2025 |  |
| Artios Pharma | Artios is an independent DNA Damage Response (DDR) company focused on developing first-in-class treatments for cancer. Established in May 2016, the Company is led by an experienced scientific and leadership team with proven expertise in DDR drug discovery. Artios is building a pipeline of next-generation DDR programs, including through a uniquepartnership with Cancer Research Technology (CRT), the development and commercialization arm of Cancer Research UK (CRUK), and with leading DNA repair researchers worldwide. The Company’s investors include SV Life Sciences, Merck Ventures, Imperial Innovations, Arix Bioscience PLC, CRT Pioneer Fund (managed by Sixth Element Capital), and AbbVie Ventures. Artios is based at the Babraham Institute in Cambridge, UK. | $115M | Series D | Nov 17, 2025 |  |
| NRG Therapeutics | NRG Therapeutics is a drug discovery company focussed on therapeutic approaches that will restore mitochondrial function and slow or halt the progression of neurodegenerative diseases such as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease and motor neurone disease. Founded in 2018 by a team of experienced biotech and pharmaceutical industryprofessionals, with a background in neuroscience drug discovery, NRG Therapeutics will initially focus on the discovery and development of brain penetrant mitochondrial permeability transition pore inhibitors for the treatment of Parkinson’s disease. | $67.8M | Series B | Sep 08, 2025 |  |
| Splice Bio | Splice Bio is a gene therapy company based on technology developed in the Muir Lab at Princeton University. The company is developing novel gene therapies based on its proprietary intein platform technology to treat patients that suffer from incurable genetic diseases. The company’s platform has the potential to address two existing limitations ofadeno-associated viruses (AAVs), both by increasing the size of the cargo gene that can be delivered and by expanding the range of tissues that can be targeted. | $135M | Series B | Jun 11, 2025 |  |
| FoRx Therapeutics | FoRx Therapeutics is a recently incorporated privately-held company aiming to develop first-in-class compounds for cancer treatment. FoRx focuses on drugging key molecular targets involved in DNA replication stress, as a new approach towards the development of targeted anticancer drugs. | $48.6M | Series A | Jun 01, 2025 |  |
| Fore Biotherapeutics | We are a precision oncology company pioneering the development of cancer therapies guided by our proprietary functional genomics. | $40.2M | Series D | May 06, 2025 |  |

10 of 219 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [OrbiMed](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/orbimed-advisors) — VC Fund, 23 deals together
- [SR One](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sr-one) — VC Fund, 20 deals together
- [New Enterprise Associates](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/new-enterprise-associates) — VC Fund, 18 deals together
- [EQT Life Sciences](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/life-sciences-partners) — VC Fund, 15 deals together
- [Pfizer Venture Investments](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/pfizer-venture-investments) — VC Fund, 15 deals together
- [RA Capital Management](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/ra-capital-management) — VC Fund, 15 deals together

## Similar investors

### Similar industry
- [SOSV](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sosv) — VC Fund
- [ARCH Venture Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/arch-venture-partners) — VC Fund
- [OrbiMed](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/orbimed-advisors) — VC Fund

### Similar stage
- [Alumni Ventures](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/alumni-ventures-group) — VC Fund
- [General Catalyst](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/general-catalyst-partners) — VC Fund
- [FJ Labs](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/fj-labs) — VC Fund

### Similar country
- [SICTIC](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/sictic) — VC Fund
- [Zürcher Kantonal Bank](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/z%C3%BCrcher-kantonalbank) — VC Fund
- [Foundation for Innovation and Technology (FIT)](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/foundation-pour-l-innovation-technologique) — VC Fund

## Featured in investor lists
- [Biotech Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/biotech-investors)
- [Biotech VC Funds](https://shizune.co/investors/biotech-vc-funds)
- [Biotechnology Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/biotechnology-investors)
- [Biotechnology VC Funds](https://shizune.co/investors/biotechnology-vc-funds)
- [Health Care Investors](https://shizune.co/investors/health-care-investors)
- [Health Care VC Funds](https://shizune.co/investors/health-care-vc-funds)

## FAQ

### What does Novartis Venture Fund invest in?

Novartis Venture Fund invests primarily in Biotechnology, Health Care and Therapeutics startups, most often at Series B and Series A stage. Most of the 219 investments tracked by Shizune back companies in United States. The Investment Focus section breaks down every industry, stage and country in the portfolio.

### What is Novartis Venture Fund's check size?

Novartis Venture Fund typically joins rounds of $5.1M–$81M at Series A, $11M–$120M at Series B and $9M–$75M at Series C. These ranges are 10th–90th percentile round sizes calculated from confirmed public funding rounds, so they are a realistic guide to the rounds Novartis Venture Fund participates in.

### How do I contact Novartis Venture Fund?

Public channels for Novartis Venture Fund include LinkedIn, X (Twitter) and the website linked on this profile. 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.

### Who are the partners at Novartis Venture Fund?

The team at Novartis Venture Fund includes Aaron Nelson (Principal & Managing Director), Anja König (Global Head Novartis Venture Fund) and Bart Dzikowski (Managing Director, Head of Transactions & Legal), among 11 team members tracked by Shizune. The Team section lists each member with their title, investment count and links.

### 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.

# About Shizune
Shizune.co is an investor database. Core features:
- 48,091 startup investors (angels, VCs, accelerators, and others)
- Email, phone, LinkedIn (for intros), socials, and other contact data
- Updated daily from public funding news
- CSV and Excel export

The User can access the full database FOR FREE after signing up: shizune.co