Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds

Chris Garabedian serves as CEO and leads investment decisions for the venture funds. He previously founded Xontogeny, a biotech accelerator, and has a background in life sciences entrepreneurship. The fund is part of Perceptive Advisors, founded by Joe Edelman, but Garabedian directs the venture-focused portfolio.

The fund sources deals through a combination of its operational group—helping build companies from inception—and its network within Perceptive Advisors. The team often identifies therapeutic opportunities and recruits executive talent to form new ventures. This founder-in-residence model creates proprietary deal flow (per public record).

Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds are structured as a venture capital firm, not a family office. They are the venture arm of Perceptive Advisors, which is an investment management firm. The funds raise capital from institutional investors and have a defined fund life, similar to traditional VC funds.

The firm focuses exclusively on direct venture capital investments, primarily leading or co-leading rounds in early-stage biotech companies. They do not commit to other funds. Their model involves hands-on portfolio company building.

The fund targets early-stage biotech companies, from preclinical through Phase II clinical trials. They typically lead Series A and Series B rounds. Later-stage opportunities are generally directed to other Perceptive Advisors vehicles.

The fund invests exclusively in life sciences, with a heavy emphasis on therapeutics, including gene therapy, cell therapy, and precision medicine. They also invest in diagnostics and platforms. They avoid non-life sciences sectors like tech or energy.

Perceptive Xontogeny Venture Funds is the venture capital arm of Perceptive Advisors, a life sciences investment firm founded by Joe Edelman. Perceptive Advisors also runs a public equity hedge fund and a royalty fund. Perceptive Xontogeny operates semi-autonomously under CEO Chris Garabedian (per public record).