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Venture Capital and Angel Investor Groups

Diverse angel investors and venture capital firms in North Carolina provide seed and growth funding for biotechnology companies.

Venture Capital Firms

  • Alexandria Venture Investments

    Alexandria’s strategic venture capital platform. Since its inception in 1996, they have invested in disruptive life science, agrifood tech, climate innovation, and technology companies advancing transformative new modalities and platforms to meaningfully improve human health. They invest in seed-, early-, and growth-stage companies accelerating discoveries across a range of emerging technologies and novel modalities

  • Bull City Venture Partners (Bull City)

    Bull City Venture Partners invests in seed and early-stage ventures in the health IT, software, and e-commerce industries.

  • Carolina Research Ventures (CRV)

    Carolina Research Ventures was created by UNC-Chapel Hill in conjunction with UNC Health to unlock the potential of its technologies and UNC entrepreneurs, advancing their commercialization efforts by providing capital and expertise. Companies must have a UNC affiliation.

  • Coddle Creek Capital (CCC)

    Coddle Creek Capital is a life science venture capital fund focused on generating superior investment returns for its limited partners by investing in the early commercial development of companies that surpassed the proof of concept phase and are ready for their first commercial efforts. CCC focuses on the sectors of genomics, microbiome, oncology, immunology, neurology and drug discovery, development, and manufacturing.

  • Cone Health Ventures (CHV)

    Cone Health Ventures partners with digital health and med tech companies to shorten the development cycle and accelerate market adoption. CHV identifies entrepreneurial companies with solutions that address the greatest needs and top strategic aims of Cone Health.

     

    Through negotiating win-win agreements to align the interests of all parties, CHV accelerates commercialization into the broader healthcare market to create value for the companies, Cone Health, and its patients.

     

    Company partners receive unparalleled access to decision makers and clinical staff, validation opportunities for co-developed solutions, business model refinement, and assistance selling into other health systems. Areas of primary interest are digital health/healthcare IT and med tech.

  • Echo Health Ventures (Echo)

    Echo Health Ventures drives systemic health care transformation through hands-on, purpose-driven strategic venture capital and growth equity investing. Echo brings together USAble Corporation, Cambia Health Solutions, and Mosaic Health Solutions to accelerate health care innovation nationwide and support meaningful health care impact.

     

    Echo Health Ventures operates nationwide with offices in Durham, N.C., Portland, Ore., Seattle, and Boston. The organization is focused on investing in companies that personalize health care, supporting individuals and families alike. Areas of interest include telemedicine, digital health, healthcare technology that addresses women’s health, and social determinants of health.

  • Eshelman Ventures

    Eshelman Ventures is a Wilmington-based fund that invests in numerous ways, including angel investing in startups, "alongside" investing with venture capital funds, private equity funds (primary or secondary markets), academic spinouts, hedge fund projects, and public companies.

     

    While EV concentrates on healthcare, the fund will consider other themes that are attractive and have large potential markets. Generally, EV is interested in double-digit percentage positions with dilution protection.

  • Excelerate Health Ventures (EHV)

    Excelerate Health Ventures was founded by experienced entrepreneurs with extensive startup and investment experience including scientific, business, financial, and intellectual property. EHV is a digital health fund for early-stage companies.

     

    The fund is interested in capital-efficient healthcare technology start-ups that can scale rapidly in the healthcare IT and tech-enabled healthcare services industries with a B2B SaaS model. Excelerate invests in groundbreaking companies that change the way healthcare works.

  • Gaston Capital

    Gaston Capital is dedicated to investing in businesses with solid fundamentals and management teams that have a vision for growth and value creation. Focus industries include business and industrial services, healthcare, niche manufacturing, and financial services.

     

  • Hatteras Venture Partners (HVP)

    Hatteras Venture Partners is a venture capital firm formed to invest primarily in early-stage companies with a focus on biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, diagnostics, healthcare IT, and related opportunities in human medicine.

     

    The firm will invest in companies located in the research-driven regions of North Carolina and the Southeastern United States, which are undercapitalized in comparison to New England and California. Founded in 2000 and based in Durham, NC, Hatteras has five funds and approximately $450 million under management.

  • IDEA Fund Partners

    IDEA Fund Partners is a seed and early-stage venture capital firm focused on investing in and working alongside innovative technology companies in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions. With offices in Durham, North Carolina, IDEA Fund Partners invests mainly in companies developing software, medical devices or other technologies where intellectual property is an important asset and source of differentiation from competitors.

  • KdT Ventures (KdT)

    KdT Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Black Mountain, North Carolina. The firm seeks to invest in seed, early-stage, and later-stage companies and prefers to fund companies focused on healthcare technology systems, pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, agriculture. chemicals, gases, and life sciences sectors.

  • NovaQuest Capital Management

    NovaQuest Capital Management promotes the late-stage development of life-saving drugs and healthcare technologies and services in order to reduce the cost of healthcare, address unmet medical needs, improve safety, and enhance overall quality of life. NovaQuest also invests in Animal Health.

  • ​​​​​​Oval Park Capital

    Oval Park Capital is an early-stage venture capital firm with a focus on deep technology and enterprise software startups in the Southeast, including Raleigh-Durham, Atlanta, Nashville, and more.

     

    Oval Park’s investment criteria has a natural impact orientation as the majority of sectors and corporate profiles it considers have noble goals. Examples include novel vaccine delivery systems that reduce the need for antibiotics and chemicals in poultry production, sensors and software that reduce spoilage in the produce supply chain, and proprietary technology enabling vendor-agnostic searches and rapid, secure transmission of life-saving medical information.

  • Pappas Ventures

    Pappas Ventures is focused exclusively on investing in the life sciences sector (including biotechnology, biopharmaceuticals, drug delivery, medical devices, and related ventures) across the United States and Canada.

     

    The Pappas team works closely with its portfolio companies and investors to deliver superior results for everyone involved.

  • Pisgah Fund

    The Pisgah Fund is an investment fund, investing in both healthcare-related companies in Western North Carolina’s 18-county region and healthcare-related companies locating operations in the region. The fund provides essential capital to help companies grow and create jobs in Western North Carolina. It is managed by Hatteras Venture Partners.

  • Resilient Ventures (Resilient)

    Founded in 2018, Resilient Ventures is a venture capital firm based in Durham, North Carolina. The firm seeks to invest in early-stage companies operating in consumer, tech & tech-enabled, consumer products, impact, health, and service sectors. Resilient’s mission is to close the wealth gap by expanding access to capital, networks, and opportunity to African American founders.

  • Rex Health Ventures (RHV)

    Rex Health Ventures is part of Rex Healthcare’s groundbreaking innovation platform, Rex Strategic Innovation (RSI). RHV features an early-stage venture fund, a team of healthcare and investment professionals, and a commitment to improving patient care.

     

    RHV supports the discovery and development of new treatments, tools, products, and services that foster innovation and positively impact the provision of healthcare. RHV invests in and partners with companies and entrepreneurs throughout North Carolina and the U.S. to help bring their products and services into the healthcare marketplace.

  • River Cities Capital Funds (RCC)

    River Cities is a Raleigh, NC-based growth equity firm building high-potential healthcare companies by leveraging the unique interplay of its segments of focus: medical devices, healthcare services, and healthcare IT. The firm targets companies generating over $5 million in revenue.  

     

    RCC is dedicated to investing on the right side of healthcare, growing companies that enable clinicians to improve the delivery of care and the experiences and outcomes for patients. Founded in 1994 in Cincinnati, Ohio, River Cities has nearly $600 million raised to date and more than 100 investments made.

  • SeaAhead Bluetech Innovation (SeaAhead)

    SeaAhead is a bluetech startup platform. We help build companies, run an incubator, facilitate investments, and catalyze a bluetech cluster in the Northeast.

     

    SeaAhead’s ecosystem includes technologists, scientists, startups, corporations, governments, and other ocean stakeholders that are coming together to create an impact in areas including greener shipping and ports, aquaculture and fishery processes, offshore alternative energy, plastics, and smart, resilient cities.

  • Syngenta Group Ventures

    As one of the pioneering corporate venture capital units in the agriculture industry, Syngenta Group Ventures has supported innovative startup companies worldwide for more than a decade as they solve challenges facing the global agri-food supply chain.

  • Telegraph Hill Partners (THP)

    Telegraph Hill Partners is a venture capital firm dedicated to helping commercial stage life science, medical device, and healthcare companies achieve their growth objectives.

     

    THP works with commercial companies in growth areas within the healthcare sector, including life science technologies, medical devices, chemistry and reagent suppliers, and healthcare services.

  • Tidewater Equity Partners

    Founded in late 2016, Tidewater Equity Partners is a North Carolina investment firm focusing on small company direct investment as well as healthcare venture capital. Tidewater looks for a buyout, controlling interest, and recapitalization opportunities in small companies across multiple industries in North Carolina and the Southeast.

Angel Investor Organizations

  • Asheville Angels (AA)

    Asheville Angels is a member-based angel investor network that supports startups and early-stage, high-growth companies in Asheville and across the Southeast. AA considers investments across numerous industries more important than the caliber of the team, the company’s traction, and a host of other factors, including the ability to generate $20M in revenue in 5 years. Founded in October of 2014, AA currently consists of about 40 angel investors.

  • Carolina Angel Network (CAN)

    The Carolina Angel Network provides an angel investing platform and co-investment fund that leverages the UNC alumni network. Portfolio companies must have a UNC affiliation and be headquartered in the United States.

  • Charlotte Angel Fund (CAF)

    The Charlotte Angel Fund invests in early-stage companies throughout North Carolina and contiguous states. Its members are residents of or have interests in the Charlotte area. CAF members invest early on in promising companies with strong management teams. They consider compelling business opportunities in large markets, including the life sciences industry.

  • Duke Angel Network (DAN)

    The Duke Angel Network (DAN) supports the Duke entrepreneurial community with an angel investing platform and co-investment fund that leverages the Duke alumni network. Companies must have a Duke affiliation and be located in the United States.

  • Inception Micro Angel Fund (IMAF)

    IMAF is a family of member-managed, seed-stage angel capital funds with affiliates located in six major regions of North Carolina - IMAF Cape Fear (Wilmington), Charlotte Angel Fund (Charlotte), IMAF Coastal Plain (Rocky Mount), IMAF East (Greenville), IMAF RTP (RTP), IMAF Sandhills (Fayetteville), IMAF Triad (Greensboro), and IMAF West (Asheville).

  • RTP Capital Associates

    RTP Capital Associates is a consortium of individual accredited angel investors who are passionate about entrepreneurship and have a sincere desire to help the entrepreneurs in whom they individually invest.

     

    RTP Capital Associates’ investment focus is relatively broad, and it is driven by the preferences of our individual members. Its members typically provide insight, guidance, mentoring, connections, and other strategic resources, including Board of Director representation, to mitigate investment risk and enhance value for the regionally based seed-stage companies in which they invest.

  • Sustainable Food Ventures (SFV)

    Sustainable Food Ventures' mission is to support founders developing sustainable food products and scaling profitable companies in the global $12 trillion food and grocery retail market. SFV backs early-stage founders building leading food companies that are cell-based, plant-based, and recombinant. SFV will not invest in any companies involved in animal agriculture.

  • Triangle Angel Partners (TAP)

    Triangle Angel Partners is an experienced band of angel investors, in tech and life sciences industries, interested in investing their time, analysis, and money into early life cycle companies. TAP invests in companies within a half-day drive of Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. They focus on investing in first-of-a-kind ideas rather than incremental enhancements to existing products and services.

  • VentureSouth

    VentureSouth operates angel investment groups and funds comprised of more than 300 accredited investors across the Southeast. Their groups and funds have invested over $50 million in more than 75 companies. They have co-invested with over 30 venture capital funds, angel groups, family offices, and corporate investors.

     

    Their founders and partners combine complementary skills from diverse backgrounds: they have been engineers, builders, entrepreneurs, investors, consultants, board members, and educators. They support their portfolio companies with advisors, board members, follow-on capital, and introductions to strategic resources.

  • Wilmington Investor Network, LLC (WIN)

    WIN is a private equity fund of angel investors located in Wilmington, North Carolina. WIN provides capital to early-stage, high-growth companies throughout eastern North and South Carolina that have the potential to provide a high rate of return on investment.

     

    WIN is a founding member of the Angel Capital Association and works with other angel investment groups in the area to leverage expertise, experience, and financial power to help emerging companies and to benefit its members.

  • Wolfpack Investor Network (WIN)

    The Wolfpack Investor Network provides an angel investing platform and co-investment fund that leverages the NC State alumni network. Portfolio companies must have an NC State affiliation and be headquartered in the United States.

Non-Life Science Investors based in NC

  • 8 Rivers Capital

    We develop and deploy sustainable, infrastructure-scale solutions to meet the global goal of net zero by 2050.

  • Cofounders Capital

    Cofounders is an early-stage seed fund focused on B2B software ventures predominately in North Carolina.

  • SJF Ventures

    SJF Ventures invests in high-growth companies creating a healthier, smarter, and cleaner future. Our mission is to catalyze the development of highly successful businesses driving lasting, positive changes.

Need additional ideas?

The Life Science Intelligence team can provide additional tools or conduct custom research for funding sources. For more information, contact LSI at research@ncbiotech.org or 919-549-8880.

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