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OV Principal Investments
Michael Kim's OV Principal Investments runs a biotech-heavy portfolio sourced from Johns Hopkins labs, with co-investments in companies like D&D...
OV Principal Investments
Michael S. Kim founded OV Principal Investments, structuring it alongside Octave Ventures, where he serves as CEO and works with Partner and COO Joshua Schwab. The firm maintains a deliberate research-translation model, sourcing life-science opportunities directly from Johns Hopkins Medical School faculty and affiliated researchers. This relationship has yielded portfolio companies including Valted Seq and Plenary.AI, which originate from academic labs and are then paired with co-investors such as DongKoo Bio & Pharma Co., Ltd. to scale. The deployment strategy spans two distinct asset classes: early-stage biotechnology ventures and commercial real estate. On the life-science side, OV targets neurodegenerative and oncology therapeutics, with confirmed positions in D&D Pharmatech and Evia Life Sciences, the latter co-founded by Kim alongside extracellular-vesicle researcher Takahiro Ochiya. The real estate book includes PMO Hamamatsucho, a commercial property in central Tokyo, and PROUD FLAT Togoshi-Ginza, a residential asset — indicating a concentrated Japan-market real estate mandate rather than a diversified global property portfolio. OV operates a lean structure, with Kim and Schwab forming the named leadership team. The firm functions without a publicly stated AUM or fund-raise cadence, suggesting internal capital, family capital, or single-partner backing rather than a broad LP base. Its Johns Hopkins pipeline functions as a competitive moat — access to licensing-ready academic spinouts at formation stage, before they reach institutional venture rounds. Co-investment relationships with Korean strategic players like DongKoo Bio & Pharma add a cross-border dimension to syndication. The firm's structural differentiator is its scientist-founder adjacency model. Rather than operating as a pure financial investor, OV embeds with academic principal investigators through the Johns Hopkins network, allowing it to seed companies at the paper-to-patent transition point. This blurs the line between a venture studio and an investment office, giving OV a sourcing advantage in a domain where technical due diligence often gates outside capital.
General information
Firm type
Generalist
Year founded
—
AUM
Undisclosed
Location
Region
North America
Country
United States
City
Dover
Corporate office
Dover, DE, United States
Principals
Michael S. Kim
Founder and CEO
Joshua Schwab
Partner and COO
Sector focus
Frequently asked questions
How does OV Principal Investments source its life-science deals?
OV taps a direct pipeline from Johns Hopkins Medical School, where faculty-founded startups like Valted Seq and Plenary.AI originate from academic labs. The firm co-invests alongside strategic partners such as DongKoo Bio & Pharma Co. and operates alongside scientific founders, including extracellular-vesicle researcher Takahiro Ochiya, who co-founded Evia Life Sciences with Michael Kim.
Is OV Principal Investments a single-family office or a traditional asset manager?
OV is structured as an investment company rather than a registered single-family office. It does not serve multiple external families in a multi-family office model, nor does it publicly raise funds from institutional LPs. Its capital base appears proprietary, with Michael Kim as the controlling principal.
What is the relationship between OV Principal Investments and Octave Ventures?
Michael Kim is the Founder and CEO of both entities, and Joshua Schwab serves as Partner and COO of Octave Ventures. The two firms share leadership and appear to operate as affiliated investment vehicles, with Octave potentially serving as the broader venture platform and OV Principal Investments as the direct-investment entity.
What types of real estate does OV Principal Investments own?
OV holds commercial and residential real estate concentrated in Tokyo, Japan. Known assets include PMO Hamamatsucho, a commercial property, and PROUD FLAT Togoshi-Ginza, a residential building. This suggests a targeted Japan-metro strategy rather than a diversified global real estate portfolio.
Does OV Principal Investments take board seats at its portfolio companies?
OV's scientist-founder adjacency model — working with Johns Hopkins researchers at company formation — suggests active involvement, but specific board appointments are not publicly disclosed. Co-founding roles, as with Michael Kim's involvement in Evia Life Sciences, indicate hands-on operational engagement rather than passive investing.
Profile maintained by Altss using OSINT (open-source intelligence), regulatory filings, licensed data partners, and verified direct submissions. Read the methodology. Last updated: . Continuous refresh with full update cycles at least every 30 days.
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