Lexi Ventures

Lexi Ventures is a VC firm focused on the gene tech revolution. This focus is rooted in these beliefs. 1. Genetic engineering will change the lives of all people to a degree comparable with the industrial revolution and info-tech revolutions. 2. This will enable startups to create unmatched opportunities for wealth creation for their customers, employees, and investors. 3. The convergence of harnessing CRISPR, creation of AI-based protein modeling tools like AlphaFold, long read and next-generation sequencing, and growing talent has made this the right time for the thesis. 4. There is more alpha in gene tech than other bio, health, and deep tech businesses. Gene tech startups aim to cure many of the most agonizing and most expensive diseases, improving happiness and reducing healthcare needs. Other gene tech startups will enable plants and microbes to produce newer and better things while sustaining the natural environment. Lexi Ventures has diversification across health, consumer products, food, materials, and other sectors. We invest around seed stage in US companies working with DNA, RNA, proteins, and cells as well as related tools and software.

A step forward by QUiCKR Bio in terms of ease of measuring DNA edit efficiency.

Selecting a fund manager: Foresight and flexibility, not track record “I don’t bet on horses. I bet on racecourses.” -Don Valentine, founder of Sequoia Capital Track records are a backward looking indicator. They are poorly correlated with future returns. For example, a hypothetical fund manager who bet on the seed rounds of Airbnb and Uber in 2009 would show an amazing track record at their IPOs in 2019-20. But trading on that track record to start a new marketplace fund then would likely produce disappointing returns. If that manager had the foresight to start a crypto fund in 2020, they would produce amazing returns. When selecting a fund manager, two things are much more important than track record. (a) Foresight into future trends in technology and society (b) Flexibility to shift focus into different technologies and sectors to take advantage of those trends People tend to overestimate what technologies will be developed within 2 years but underestimate what will be developed within 10. I try to correct my forecasts for that bias. In a 2015 Synopsys Users Group (SNUG) speech, I predicted, to much skepticism, that autonomous vehicles would be commonplace by 2025. In view of Waymo’s plans for service in San Francisco, Phoenix, LA, Austin, Miami, and Atlanta in 2025, I’ll claim to have been pretty close. If I had had money to start an early stage VC fund for autonomous vehicle tech in 2015, I might have hit one or more of Zoox, Nuro, and Cruise and realized great returns. Just as it was clear in 2015 that there was a great opportunity in autonomous vehicles, now, in 2025, it is clear, despite much skepticism, that there is a great opportunity in gene tech. That's why Lexi Ventures Fund 1 is a gene tech fund.

Are you a cell or gene therapy company with a preclinical program? Lexi Ventures portfolio company QUiCKR Bio provides pre-plated reagents for instant quantification of genetic modifications without the need for sequencing. Iterate your editing experiments daily, not weekly. #CellandGeneTherapy #CGT

New open job positions at Melio (portco). They are developing a diagnostic device for sepsis, initially for NICUs. Assay, Senior Scientist – Seeking a creative thinker and independent contributor to develop molecular diagnostic assays, advancing our research innovations into product development as a key member of our assay team. Microbiologist – Ideal for entry-level scientists or CLTs eager to gain hands-on experience and advance their careers within a supportive and growth-oriented team. Microfluidics Engineer – Microfluidics Engineer – Seeking early-career candidates with strong academic credentials (Master’s preferred) to join our startup team, taking microfluidic innovations to commercialization  working alongside industry-leading experts.

Follow-on reserves Seed funds often reserve capital for follow-on investments in series A of select portfolio companies. This strategy balances opportunity cost with ownership share of winners and is based on the increase in prediction certainty at Series A. The opportunity cost of reserving capital for series A is the ability to invest in more potential winners at seed stage. Seed stage valuations are lower and so exit multiples are higher. If a fund intends to invest in the A round of all portfolio companies, it should invest the full fund at seed to get the lower stock price and higher share of ownership. The reason to reserve capital for A rounds is that the prediction certainty of which companies will be winners is higher at series A. The optimal portion of the fund to reserve for follow-ons depends on how much the certainty increases. Prediction certainty must increase more than proportional to the valuation step-up from seed to A for it to be worthwhile to have any reserves. Above that, the optimal portion of the fund to reserve depends on the difference in prediction certainty between the rounds. Large reserves signal that fund managers believe they are much better able, at series A, to discriminate between future winners and losers. A seed stage fund with very large reserves is essentially a series A fund. Examples: Assuming a 3x valuation step-up from Seed to Series A: * 2x increase in prediction certainty: 0% reserves * 4x increase in prediction certainty: ~20% reserves * 10x increase in prediction certainty: ~67% reserves In summary, reserve strategy should align with the fund's ability to identify winners at later stages, balanced against the benefits of broader seed-stage investments. Thoughts?

QUiCKR Bio is one of the unsung heroes helping bring CRISPR to real world applications by making the edit workflow efficient.

Self-serving but true.

Lexi Ventures is proud to back TippingPoint Biosciences in their development of therapies for #cancers implicating chromatin packing.