Founder of Pack VC, Ken Horenstein
SEATTLE - January 27, 2022 - (Newswire.com)
Pack Ventures (VC), a pre-seed and seed venture fund, launched today to invest in founders associated with the University of Washington (UW) network. A first of its kind in the Pacific Northwest venture capital landscape, Pack VC is on a mission to back the best entrepreneurs in Seattle and beyond who are part of the UW network, including students, faculty and alumni -- both on-campus and off.
Established as a 506c fund under SEC regulations, Pack VC is uniquely positioned to attract all kinds of accredited investors, not just the ultra-wealthy, or people with unique access to existing venture funds, accelerating innovation among the UW community and establishing a wealth generation mechanism for those who are traditionally unable to invest in VC funds.
Pack VC started with local leaders in the venture community, Chris Devore, Matt Mcllwain and Mike Halperin, envisioning a new way of connecting local investors to the innovators out of the University of Washington. Working with the UW Innovation Roundtable, led by François Baneyx of UW's CoMotion, they recruited experienced investor and UW legacy, Ken Horenstein, to launch and lead Pack VC.
"The UW is one of the top research universities in North America in terms of grant funding, on a par with peer research universities like Stanford, MIT and Berkeley. It's also a magnet for global talent in both the technical and liberal arts disciplines needed to form high-performing entrepreneurial teams," said Chris DeVore, Managing Partner of Founders' Co-op and longtime UW supporter. "We believe one of the key factors to accelerating the UW's startup growth is a dedicated pool of risk capital and a network of experienced builders mentoring and guiding the next generation of UW founders, which is exactly what Pack VC represents."
"Madrona has been deeply involved at the University of Washington since our founding, and we believe in the incredible talent coming from the University," said Matt McIlwain, Managing Director at Madrona Venture Group. "Pack represents a chance for all members of the UW community to get involved in the innovation ecosystem, and we are proud to support both Pack and the future founders from the UW family."
Companies with UW connections have found significant success changing their industries and returning capital to investors. Notable recent examples include Turi ($200M acquisition to Apple), and HashiCorp ($16B debut IPO valuation in 2021). A number of companies with connections to the UW Institute for Protein Design recently went public, including Sana Biotechnology, ($500M IPO 2021), Lyell Immunopharma ($425M IPO 2021) and Icosovax ($182M IPO 2021). Based on data from PitchBook, Pack VC estimates in the past 10 years there have been 10 unicorns from the UW network, and over 30 "exit" events with company valuations totaling more than $30 Billion.
Leading Pack VC, Horenstein is joined by Beth Kolko as a venture partner to support investments in healthcare and life sciences. Horenstein is a UW BA and MBA alumni, and an alumnus of M12, Microsoft's Venture Fund. Kolko is a UW professor and an entrepreneur who took a company through YCombinator. She has also worked as Senior Venture Partner at Pioneer Fund.
Pack VC is composed of 35+ founding investors, including some of the Pacific Northwest's top founders and investors, like Mike Fridgen, Managing Director of Madrona Venture Labs, Geoff Entress, Cofounder of Pioneer Square Labs, Court Lorenzini, Cofounder and former CEO of Docusign - full list below, and available on the Pack VC Community Page.
Coinciding with its launch, Pack VC announced today that it has supported five founding teams: Talus.bio, Monod Bio, Jeeva Wireless, a stealth document automation software company, and one stealth healthcare AI company.
Please visit www.packvc.com for more information and to get connected.
Media Contact: packvc@revolutionpr.com
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Original Source: Pack Ventures Launches New, Inclusive Venture Fund to Fuel University of Washington Innovators
