# RiverVest

> RiverVest is a VC fund in St Louis backing Biotechnology and Health Care. See 101 investments, check sizes, portfolio and contact details. Updated Aug 2026.

- Type: VC Fund
- Location: St Louis, United States
- Total investments: 101
- Last investment: Sep 2025
- Lead investor: 21%
- Fund size: $275M
- Last fund: Mar 2021
- Last updated: Aug 2026
- LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/company/2514161
- X (Twitter): http://twitter.com/RiverVest
- Website: http://www.rivervest.com

RiverVest is a venture capital firm that focuses on identifying and shaping early-stage life science companies that creates shareholder values. Their team’s domain experience allows them to identify, find, and actively incubate promising life science companies in the medical device and biopharmaceutical industries. It provides practical advice andstrategic leadership to help entrepreneurs drive early-stage companies forward. It also invests in selected later-stage life science companies to diversify risk and maximize portfolio returns.RiverVest is a U.S.-based company that was founded in 2000 by Jay W. Schmelter.

## Contacts

5 contacts available for RiverVest. Shizune tracks 12 team members at RiverVest. Sign up free to unlock them: https://app.shizune.co/sign-up/investor-profiles/find-team-emails/rivervest?utm_source=investor_profile

## Investment focus

### Industry

| Industry | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Biotechnology | 36 | 36% |
| Health Care | 31 | 31% |
| Medical | 19 | 19% |
| Therapeutics | 15 | 15% |
| Pharmaceutical | 15 | 15% |

22 industries tracked in total.

### Stage

| Stage | Investments | Share |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Series B | 29 | 29% |
| Series A | 21 | 21% |
| Series C | 17 | 17% |
| Series D | 13 | 13% |
| Funding Round | 6 | 6% |

9 stages tracked in total.

## Team

| Name | Title | Investments | Profile |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Karen Spilizewski | Vice President | 2 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/karen-spilizewski |
| Andrew B. Craig III | Retired Special Limited Partner | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/andrew-b-craig-iii |
| Corrin J. Short | Executive Assistant | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/corrin-j-short |
| Derek K. Rapp | Managing Director | 0 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/derek-rapp |
| Derek Rapp | Managing Director | 1 | https://shizune.co/investors/profile/derek-k-rapp |

## Investments

| Company | Description | Amount | Stage | Date | Website |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Sparrow Pharmaceuticals | Sparrow Pharmaceuticals is a clinical-stage biopharmaceutical company addressing metabolic dysfunction from excess cortisol. Leveraging underappreciated scientific insights into corticosteroid biology, the company is working to deliver improved outcomes for patients who struggle to control diabetes and related metabolic conditions with currentoptions. Its lead product, clofutriben, is an oral, small molecule, designed to target the source of active intracellular cortisol in key tissues.The company was founded in 2013 by David A. Katz and is based in Portland, Oregon, United States. | $95M | Series B | Sep 24, 2025 |  |
| Wugen | Wugen is developing off-the-shelf cellular therapies for cancer. Our NK cell therapy products originate from healthy donors and are further manipulated in order to enhance their function to eliminate cancer cells. Our NK cell and CAR-T immuno-oncology therapies address the needs of patients with solid tumors, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and T-cellmalignancies. | $115M | Series C | Aug 27, 2025 |  |
| Wugen | Wugen is developing off-the-shelf cellular therapies for cancer. Our NK cell therapy products originate from healthy donors and are further manipulated in order to enhance their function to eliminate cancer cells. Our NK cell and CAR-T immuno-oncology therapies address the needs of patients with solid tumors, acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and T-cellmalignancies. | $115M | Series C | Aug 27, 2025 |  |
| Avalyn Pharma | Avalyn Pharma is a biopharma company that advances therapies for the treatment of Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF) and other severe respiratory diseases. Its therapies rapidly advance AP01 for the treatment of IPF, provides additional pipeline candidates for IPF, improve the care and outcomes of severe respiratory diseases, and develop novelinhaled therapeutics.Avalyn Pharma was established in 2011 and is headquartered in Seattle, Washington. | $100M | Series D | Jul 22, 2025 |  |
| Glycomine | Glycomine is early-stage biotech working on replacement therapies for rare diseases. There are approximately 7,000 rare disorders worldwide. Each day more are being discovered. 95% of rare diseases have not one single FDA-approved treatment. Glycomine develops therapeutics for diseases that have no treatment options. | $115M | Series C | Apr 16, 2025 |  |
| Biolinq | Biolinq is a digital health platform developer that aims to create a pipeline of biomonitoring solutions. The company's platform includes a skin-applied, minimally invasive electrochemical biosensor that analyzes biomarkers in the interstitial fluid to provide actionable health information while continuously monitoring multiple biomarkers,allowing diabetic patients to monitor their blood glucose levels. | $100M | Series C | Mar 19, 2025 |  |
| Atalanta Therapeutics | Atalanta Therapeutics is a biotechnology company pioneering new treatment options for neurodegenerative diseases by utilizing its proprietary RNA interference platform. | $97M | Series B | Jan 28, 2025 |  |
| Alleviant Medical | Alleviant Medical focuses on developing a minimally-invasive medical device to treat congestive heart failure. Its proprietary transcatheter technology is designed to create a paradigm shift in the treatment of heart failure by relieving patient symptoms, improving quality of life, and reducing hospital readmissions for over 6 million Americanscurrently suffering from this disease. | $90M | Venture - Series Unknown | Jan 14, 2025 |  |
| InterVene | InterVene is an up and coming medical device start-up company reinventing the way physicians treat severe venous disease in the legs. This technology represents the first-ever catheter-based, non-implantable approach, which allows physicians to create new vein valves for patients who are unable to efficiently pump blood out of their legs and backto their hearts. Millions of Americans currently suffer from painful venous stasis ulcers (VSU’s) and other costly and devastating symptoms, yet no therapy currently exists to solve one of the most prevalent underlying causes: deep vein valve failure. InterVene plans to change that.The company's mission is to provide the first effective and widely utilized therapy for patients suffering from the painful and costly symptoms of Chronic Venous Insufficiency (CVI) due to deep vein reflux (DVR). It was founded in 2011 and is based in South San Francisco, CA, USA. | $13M | Series A | Oct 07, 2024 |  |
| Bluejay Therapeutics | Bluejay Therapeutics is a private biopharmaceutical company focused on the development of cures for infectious diseases. The company’s first target indication is chronic Hepatitis B, which remains a worldwide prevalent disease with urgent unmet medical need. Bluejay is advancing two innovative approaches with the potential for high rate offunctional cure: best-in-class fully human IgG1 anti-HBs monoclonal antibodies and first-in-class HBsAg oral small molecule inhibitors. The company believes that by reducing hepatitis B surface antigen and restoring adaptive immunity a functional cure could be achieved for patients. | $182M | Series C | May 09, 2024 |  |

10 of 101 investments shown.

## Co-investors
- [Novo Holdings](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/novo-a-s) — VC Fund, 11 deals together
- [Roche Venture Fund](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/roche-venture-fund) — VC Fund, 11 deals together
- [F-Prime](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/f-prime-capital-partners) — VC Fund, 9 deals together
- [3×5 Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/3x5-partners) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [3×5 Partners](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/3x5-partners-658c) — VC Fund, 8 deals together
- [Abingworth](https://shizune.co/investors/profile/abingworth-management) — VC Fund, 8 deals together

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## FAQ

### What does RiverVest invest in?

RiverVest invests primarily in Biotechnology, Health Care and Medical startups, most often at Series B and Series A stage. Most of the 101 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 RiverVest?

Public channels for RiverVest 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 RiverVest?

The team at RiverVest includes Karen Spilizewski (Vice President), Andrew B. Craig III (Retired Special Limited Partner) and Corrin J. Short (Executive Assistant), among 12 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.

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