Elasomeran

iStock, Vanz Studio Venture capital flow to women-founded companies has stabilized in the post-pandemic environment. BioSpace looks back at five companies that have nabbed the most over the past two decades. Biopharmas with women founders have contributed $64.1 billion in venture capital dollars across 3,375 deals since 2008, according to a recent analysis by PitchBook . 2025 has been a particularly good year for female-founded companies across all sectors, with $103.7 billion invested across 2,528 deals so far, according to PitchBook. Zeroing in on biopharma, the capital flow suggests that investment in female-founded companies is stabilizing in the post-pandemic environment. In 2025 so far, female-founded biopharmas have taken in $4.8 billion across 203 deals. This is a significant drop from the peak in 2021, when $12.7 billion in venture capital was recorded for this category across 412 transactions. Since then, the numbers have declined as the sugar buzz wore off—a trend that is reflected across biopharma, regardless of the gender of the founders. Much of the cash for women-founded biopharmas has centered in the U.S.’ two key biotech hubs: the Boston-Cambridge area, which saw $24.4 billion in investment across 759 total deals, and San Francisco-Oakland, where 618 deals netted $16.3 billion. Investment rounds were split equally across early, late and angel rounds. Female-only founded companies took in $7.7 billion in 509 deals, compared to $56.4 billion over 2,866 deals for biopharmas co-founded by women and men. The largest deal in the 16 years for which PitchBook has data was EQRx, which brought in $570 million in a series B in January 2021. The company, which has since gone out of business, had six founders including Melanie Nallicheri, Susan Hager and Sandra Horning. Below, BioSpace looks back at the top five rounds since 2008 and where the companies are today. EQRx Deal Size: $570 million Round: B Founders: Alexis Borisy, Melanie Nallicheri, Robert Forrester, Susan Hager, Peter Bach and Sandra Horning After a massive fundraising push over three years that raised a total of $1.97 billion, the ending for EQRx was not happy. The company emerged with a big goal : to develop medicines that were not just innovative, but affordable. EQRx jumped to the markets quickly through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) in August 2021, picking up another $1.8 billion in proceeds. But the lofty goal quickly met with clinical reality. The biotech’s antibody sugemalimab stumbled in the clinic, leaving executives reeling. EQRx pivoted to two other candidates, then ditched the low-cost goal. The staff was slashed in half, and EQRx later sold itself to Revolution Medicines in August 2023, preserving $1 billion in capital for that company. All of EQRx’s assets were terminated and returned to partners. Neumora Deal Size: $500 million Round: A Founders: Paul Berns, Kristina Burow, Robert Nelsen, Mike Poole, Morgan Sheng and Carol Suh Believe it or not, a $500 million series A was not enough to earn Neumora the title of largest VC fundraise of 2021. Abogen’s whopping $700 million round nabbed that top slot. But that’s the nature of that year, when investors flocked to the sector buoyed by the hopeful innovation of COVID-19 vaccines that arrived at the end of 2020 to combat the pandemic. Neumora was the fourth largest VC round of 2021—and that still made waves in the sector . The company emerged with the cash and a partnership with Amgen to develop therapies for neurodegenerative disorders. It has now raised a total of $987 million, including a $250 million IPO in September 2023, according to PitchBook data. The path has not been a straight line for Neumore, however. In April 2024, the FDA slapped a clinical hold on the biotech’s schizophrenia asset as preclinical safety signals emerged. But Neumora plowed on, unfortunately revealing a Phase III failure for the kappa opioid receptor (KOR) antagonist navacaprant in major depressive disorder in January this year. With two additional trials expected to readout for the drug this year, Neumora changed things up in March and pushed out the timeline to 2026. After fielding all these challenges, Neumora is now on the cusp of releasing key Alzheimer’s disease data for NMRA-511. This could be the moment that $500 million seems worthwhile for investors. Lyell Immunopharma Deal Size: $493 million Round: C Founders: Rick Klausner, Crystal Mackall and Stan Riddell Lyell Immunopharma was ahead of the pandemic-influenced biotech funding curve with a massive $493 million series C round in March 2020. Since then, the company has continued to battle in the tough cell therapy space, using its influx of cash from various fundraising mechanisms to bring in new approaches to address the modality’s limitations. Founded by a team of cell therapy experts, Lyell has promised to develop next generation CAR T cell therapies for blood cancer and solid tumors by addressing T cell exhaustion and durability. Riding the wave of biotechs heading for the public markets in 2021, Lyell pulled off a massive $425 million IPO in June. Lyell’s GSK-partnered T cell receptor therapy hit the clinic the next year, but the success was short lived as the Big Pharma walked away from the $250 million three-year partnership months later. Continuing on, Lyell reported mixed Phase I data for the CAR T therapy LYL797 in solid tumors in June 2024. The results revealed strong response rates across patients, but a death and high rates of cytokine release syndrome marred the readout. The asset was discontinued in October 2024, just as Lyell bought ImmPACT Bio for $30 million in cash plus shares. The heart of that deal was an autologous dual-targeting CD19/CD20 CAR T, now known as rondecabtagene autoleucel (ronde-cel). Lyell began a pair of pivotal trials for the candidate this year, including a head-to-head test pitting ronde-cel against approved CD19 CAR T cell therapies, including Bristol Myers Squibb’s Breyanzi or Gilead’s Yescarta. Lyell also followed the biopharma trend and picked up a new CAR T cell candidate from China’s Innovative Cellular Therapeutics . Laronde Deal Size: $440 million Round: B Founders: Avak Kahvejian, Noubar Afeyan, Nicholas Plugis, Erica Weinstein, Sophie Boer This Flagship Pioneering–backed startup vowed to champion a new form of RNA medicines called Endless RNA upon launch in 2021 . The company rode the success of Moderna—the star of Flagship’s portfolio—to a $440 million series B months after the public debut in July 2021. But the journey was short lived. In June 2023, STAT published an expose on data integrity issues at the biotech. The company could not replicate the preclinical data that had underpinned the massive raise. Laronde cut two programs and many employees were forced to resign, including CEO Pablo Cagnoni. Flagship folded the embattled biotech into another of its portfolio companies, Senda Biosciences, to form Sail Biomedicines in October 2023. That biotech is continuing the eRNA mission but has yet to enter the clinic. BioNTech Deal Size: $425 million Round: N/A Founders: Ugur Sahin, Özlem Türeci and Christoph Huber BioNTech’s story has been told over and over—the Pfizer-partnered pandemic savior developed one of the two COVID-19 vaccines that helped bring the world back from the crisis. This generated billions in revenue and has helped fuel the biotech’s next phase. But step back to January 2019, when the German mRNA company raised a remarkable $425 million, and you’ll see that BioNTech always had big ambitions. This later-stage round involved just two pharma entities: Pfizer Ventures with $333.5 million in cash and Sanofi with $91.5 million, according to Pitchbook data. The company followed that year with a more traditional series B in July that totaled $325 million . These fundraises primed the biotech to enter the first year of the pandemic fully charged and ready for some R&D. .responsive-container { display: flex; flex-wrap: wrap; border: 1px solid #ededed; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, Sans-Serif; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-left { flex: 1; max-width: 45%; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } .column-right { flex: 2; padding: 20px 20px 10px 20px; } @media (max-width: 768px) { .column-left, .column-right { max-width: 100%; flex: 100%; padding: 10px 0; } } Subscribe to BioPharm Executive! 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