California investment firm Vivo Capital has secured $740 million in commitments to be aimed at preclinical and clinical-stage life sciences companies.

The Vivo Opportunity Fund is an evergreen public fund that runs in three-year investment cycles. The latest third cycle will continue the previous cycles’ focus on investing in “small- and mid-cap biotechnology and life sciences companies … to capture value from breakthroughs and clinical milestones,” according to a May 7 release.

Winners of the first and second Vivo Opportunity Fund cycles have included Verona Pharma, which secured its first FDA approval last year in the form of the chronic obstructive pulmonary disease treatment Ohtuvayre. Other recent regulatory successes name-checked by the VC firm were Geron’s myelodysplastic syndrome drug Rytelo in 2024 and Soleno Therapeutics’ Prader-Willi Syndrome drug Vykat XR in March of this year.

Vivo has also backed a number of biotechs that have since been scooped up by Big Pharma. They include Novartis’ $3.2 billion acquisition of kidney disease-focused Chinook Therapeutics in 2023, AstraZeneca’s $1.2 billion buyout of CAR-T developer Gracell Therapeutics that same year, and radiopharma RayzeBio, which was bought by Bristol Myers Squibb for $4.1 billion in 2024.

“As with its predecessors, the third cycle of the Vivo Opportunity Fund brings a venture capital mindset to the public markets, combining our long-term capital with our deep industry knowledge and experience to capture value for our investor,” Vivo Capital’s managing director Kevin Dai said in the release. “This strategy supports our approach of looking for the best opportunities across the entire healthcare spectrum.”

Vivo has invested $5.3 billion in over 430 public and private companies since the firm was founded in 1996. Headquartered in Palo Alto, California, with other offices in Asia, the firm has set its sights across biotech, pharma, medtech and healthcare services.

Vivo’s announcement comes against a backdrop of falling VC funding in biotech overall. An analysis by GlobalData suggested that biopharma venture funding dropped 20% in the first quarter of 2025 compared to the same period the year before.