Canaan Closes $850 Million to Continue 35-Year History of Building and Supporting Transformational Technology and Healthcare Companies

Canaan XIII and Additional Commitments Bring Total Assets Under Management to $6.8 Billion

MENLO PARK, Calif., April 6, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- Canaan today announced $850 million in new capital to continue the firm's 35-year history of building and supporting transformational companies in the technology and healthcare sectors. Canaan XIII is an oversubscribed $650 million fund intended to support visionary entrepreneurs seeking seed and Series A funding with reserves to support companies through exits including merger and acquisition (M&A) activity and initial public offerings (IPOs). An additional $200 million of commitments is available to accelerate the growth of existing portfolio companies across all of Canaan's active funds. These new funds bring Canaan's total assets under management to $6.8 billion.

"We are grateful for the support of our limited partners, many of whom have invested with Canaan over many years in numerous funds. Their belief in the firm and our consistent approach to venture allowed for a fast and efficient fundraising process despite market conditions," said John J. Pacifico, General Partner, COO & CFO of Canaan. "Whereas others are navigating their portfolios through a difficult market for the first time, Canaan has amassed decades of operational expertise that has put us in a unique position to help our portfolio company leadership teams guide their businesses through the current environment. We believe Canaan XIII reflects the high caliber of our team, the trust we've built with our limited partners, and the successful track record we've established through multiple up and down market cycles over our more than 35-year history in venture."

Canaan has long sought to build deep relationships with the brightest scientific and entrepreneurial minds in academia and industry in their earliest days of company building. With investments spanning technology and life sciences from Canaan's early days, the firm's consistent approach has led to a long track record of enduring companies and deep partnerships with entrepreneurs, engineers, and scientists. This approach has also led to many successful exits with important new technologies distributed throughout the world, including Dexcom, Instacart, and Match, along with 14 FDA-approved drugs successfully hitting the market, including ten in the last eight years.

In just the past five years, Canaan has seen ten IPOs, four public listings, and eight M&A exits within its portfolio and generated nearly $1.7 billion of realizations. They include IPOs for Day One Biopharmaceuticals in May 2021, TheRealReal in June 2019, and Arvinas in September 2018, as well as public listings for Aeva and Berkshire Grey, both in 2021. They also include acquisitions for Kustomer, acquired by Meta for $1 billion in February 2022, Unchained Labs acquired by the Carlyle Group for $435 million in April 2021, Ambra Health acquired by Intelerad Medical Systems in October 2021, ShopKeep acquired by Lightspeed for $440 million in November 2020, and most recently, Axis Security acquired by Hewlett Packard Enterprise in March 2023.

Consistent with prior funds, Canaan XIII will invest in seed and early-stage technology companies spanning enterprise, consumer, frontier tech, and fintech. For example, as companies confront business interruptions and financial consequences from cybersecurity attacks, enterprise investments from Canaan XIII will seek to build on recent experience with leading developer security platform Snyk and industrial security leader Dragos. Canaan will also seek to invest in its expanded consumer and frontier tech practices, specifically marketplaces, commerce, and gaming, and companies in robotics, supply chain, logistics, autonomous vehicles, and AI/ML, respectively. Finally, fintech investments are expected to be rooted in platform and infrastructure companies across financial services, insurance, and property.

"Canaan has always aimed to be the very first to partner with the best entrepreneurs and companies because we have a shared long-term view to build a company together, in the right way and for the long haul," said Maha Ibrahim, General Partner at Canaan. "This consistent approach is intrinsic to who we are and how we work. It's also invaluable to aspiring entrepreneurs during times of uncertainty. We pride ourselves on being our founders' first phone call and being able to offer the deep institutional knowledge only 35 years in this industry can provide."

The healthcare effort for Canaan XIII will be dedicated to company creation and early investments in areas that Canaan believes represent highest unmet clinical and medical needs and in which new medicines can significantly enhance patient care and outcomes. This includes oncology, immunology, and neurology, along with larger therapeutic indications such as cardiology and respiratory, where promising clinical-stage assets are often overlooked or neglected within the industry. Canaan's healthcare team comprises long-standing partners at the firm who have participated not only in traditional syndicated venture deals but also formed multiple companies and taken operational roles to guide science from discovery through development and commercialization while raising the capital required to fund those efforts. With Canaan XIII, the team will specifically seek to prioritize new modalities, including the latest genetically defined precision approaches that it believes are capable of producing impactful new medicines that drive meaningful clinical outcomes. The healthcare team's latest company creation and investment highlights include Vivace Therapeutics, Synthekine, RADD Pharmaceuticals, and the recently unveiled Halda Therapeutics, among others.

"While financial markets regularly modulate up and down, the trajectory of scientific knowledge is always moving up and toward the right. We know more today about the fundamental drivers of health and disease than ever before, and the science being deployed to pursue new therapeutic approaches is staggering. It is a great time to be at the forefront of creating and investing in life science companies that will transform how patients are treated and dramatically improve the outcomes they experience. We see this every day across our current portfolio and look forward to leveraging Canaan XIII to continue this mission," said Tim Shannon, M.D., General Partner at Canaan.

About Canaan

Canaan is an early-stage venture capital firm that invests in entrepreneurs with visionary ideas. With $6.8 billion under management, a diversified fund, and hundreds of exits to date, we partner with entrepreneurs building the next generation of technology and healthcare companies that will transform how we live, work, and thrive. To learn more about our people and our portfolio, please visit: www.canaan.com

Contacts:

Vida Strategic Partners (on behalf of Canaan Healthcare Team)
Tim Brons
415-675-7402
[email protected]

Sara Pallas (on behalf of Canaan Technology Team)
650-346-5892
[email protected]

SOURCE Canaan