Finding a niche within biotech VC: A conversation with Civilization Ventures
Civilization Ventures is an official partner of the Stanford Biotechnology Group. They are a San Francisco-based venture capital fund focused entirely on biology and healthcare companies with a particular emphasis on digital health, diagnostics, and gene therapy. Civilization takes a founder-centric approach and supports a diverse portfolio of companies as an operator-led fund that supports founders through not just venture capital, but active mentor capital. Even though the firm has only been around since 2017, it has quickly risen to become a leading player in the healthcare VC landscape with over $100 million in capital under management, over fifty investments to date, and 9 exits so far - most recently, the acquisition of Replace by Tome Bio.
To learn more about Civilization’s investment philosophy and the healthcare venture capital space, I interviewed Shahram Seyedin-Noor, the founder and general partner of Civilization Ventures. On his path to building a successful VC firm, he has also shown a strong commitment to supporting young scientists, entrepreneurs, and changemakers. See below for some excerpts from our conversation, which includes a lot of valuable advice for the Stanford community.
Logan: Can you introduce me to Civilization Ventures?
Shahram: I’m Shahram, the general partner and founder. We have a unique three-person team. I bring 25 years of deep operational experience having been through multiple funding cycles. I co-founded and ran Inspirna, which has 2 oncology drugs in clinical trials, and I helped run NextBio, a bioinformatics company acquired by Illumina. We have a PhD investment partner Sonia on our team with deep expertise in diagnostics, and we also have a partner Samir who was a builder at two of our gene therapy companies that recently sold. Supporting our team are our amazing CFO Matt and executive assistant Jamie. Even though each team member has a unique “superpower”, we all speak with founders, dig into due diligence, and serve on boards. With this team, we hope to give founders the tools they need to succeed as well as the capital they need to build from “zero-to-one” and de-risk their companies.
Logan: What led you to found Civilization?
Shahram: Civilization Ventures is a firm that I founded in 2017 because I wanted to do something to help entrepreneurs like myself. When I was an entrepreneur in the life sciences space, it was hard to access capital for ideas that weren’t always in the hype cycle of what traditional VCs would fund. It was generally difficult to find funding for anything that wasn’t a traditional small or large molecule play. Funding for genomics, diagnostics, software, and digital health was scarce. It was especially difficult for younger PhD and postdoc founders who didn’t fit the bill of a seasoned executive because they were considered too inexperienced and VCs were unwilling to take a risk on them. So I saw a clear entry point in the market for the type of founder that I had been a decade earlier - young, hungry, and unorthodox. I knew that some of the biggest tech and biotech companies had been built by such first-time founders (including Genentech), so it didn’t make sense to me that it would be difficult for them to raise capital.
Logan: How does this contribute to the investment thesis for Civilization?
Shahram: My thesis has always been to invest in founders with very high conviction, who are extraordinarily bright, and who have the best technology. I started by investing in areas where I had gained personal experience as an angel and as a founder - areas where traditional VCs were hesitant to invest. I started investing in genomics, digital health, AI applied to biotech, and gene and cell therapies, which were newer modalities. I established my competitive advantage. I found the convergence between my passion and experience and what I saw as the growing market opportunity to build a successful new venture fund in the stodgy world of biotech VCs.
Logan: What was your path to venture capital?
Shahram: If you would have asked me 25 years ago if I’d end up in VC, it wouldn’t have even crossed my mind. I graduated with a law degree from Harvard - not a PhD. But soon after graduating, I decided that I wanted to work in the life sciences. I started as a startup lawyer, then worked in finance until I had paid off all my educational loans. That liberated me to take the plunge into entrepreneurship! And it was only after working in startups that I gained strong domain expertise. I pitched all of the top funds while running my companies, and I realized that none of these funds were experts on all topics. No general partner at a VC firm had the time or human capacity to be an expert in all things, and that opened my eyes to the reality of how investments were made - based on pattern recognition, herd thinking, and networks. I had an edge because I understood the ups and downs of startup life from the inside, and specifically in the context of the challenges faced by life sciences companies. I quickly surrounded myself with a team of whip smart PhDs from my network to help with diligence. All of this gave me the confidence and tools to set out to disrupt the biotech VC market. Raising capital was challenging at first, but I view that as no different than raising money for my own startups. I put my head down with the mindset of “I’m going to get it done”. It’s been a wild ride to be honest.
Logan: What advice do you have for PhD students trying to decide what to do after graduating?
Shahram: If you are a PhD student who has an extraordinary technology that you are very deep in, with the potential to impact humanity, then you should start a company in my humble opinion. However, if you love science but don’t want to continue R&D after you graduate or have conviction around more than one area of biology, then maybe venture is for you. I have a few specific recommendations if this describes you. First, you will only understand if you are good at investing and enjoy it by engaging in venture-related activities as quickly as possible. Whether that means doing the Civilization Ventures Fellowship (shameless plug), or working with organizations like Nucleate or BCBA, it’s very important to get your feet wet. Second, network like crazy. Make sure venture firms know who you are and where you can add value because ultimately it’s all based on relationships. Lastly, the obvious shortcoming for most PhDs is a lack of business knowledge and experience, so it’s important to learn more about finance, public and private investing, and business negotiations. Make sure to follow industry newsletters to understand what’s happening in different sectors. You can’t just stick to the field of your PhD - you’ll need to have a much broader understanding of different scientific areas to invest successfully. The biggest mistake I see is that PhDs think that they’ve already done the hard part and everything else is easy. It’s those who show humility and put their heads down to fill in the gaps in their knowledge who are the most successful. I’m seven years in as a VC, and I still have a lot more to learn.
Logan: What are some trends you see developing in the field of healthcare VC?
Shahram: There are a lot more funds in the venture world now than a decade ago, so more ideas will get funded - and we need that. Of course, I think there will be a strong focus on genomics and diagnostics, AI and software in healthcare, as well as gene and cell therapies - that’s where we invest. Technologies will be developed more efficiently in the coming years - animal testing will be slowly replaced with in silico models, human clinical trials will be much more efficient and faster, and the FDA drug approval process will improve. Many more companies will be using automation and robotization to make lab work and other areas of healthcare easier. This will make diagnostics cheaper, faster, and more accessible, and that in turn will facilitate personalized medicines. Some other areas on the horizon are regenerative medicine, stem cell-based therapies, and fertility advancements. There will be unexpected leaps in curing common diseases, but I don’t think we’ll see dramatic lifespan extension until later in the century. By 2100, most people in the developed world will live well past 100. We hope to invest in the precursor technologies that will enable that.
Logan: What are some positive and negative traits you look for in companies that pitch to you?
Shahram: That’s a fun question because my opinion on that has evolved over time. Ten years ago, when I was an entrepreneur and an angel investor, I was seduced by the science and the novelty of the IP. Now, I put an equal emphasis on the people involved. We are less concerned with picking the most experienced industry professionals because many of the greatest entrepreneurs will be first-time founders. So the questions we ask are: are they technically brilliant? Can they tell a compelling story? Are they honest and transparent with us and themselves? And do they have extraordinary conviction? I don’t like it when I feel like someone is trying to sell me something - no one does. Instead, I want to learn what problem is being solved, and why this founder is the right person to solve it. And, of course, how we can help.
Logan: What is one thing you want people to remember about Civilization?
Shahram: I want people to remember that we will work with you to help you achieve your vision. We have unique expertise and have facilitated outlier results. We will dedicate the time, energy, capital and resources needed to help you overcome difficult problems. That’s our track record.
We’d like to thank Shahram for his time in speaking with us and for being a partner to SBG. If you’d like to learn more about Civilization Ventures, you can visit their website here.
