OneVentures Boosts Healthcare Team

Group is now one of Australia’s most diverse Venture Capital firms

Australian Venture Capital firm OneVentures has boosted its Healthcare investment management team with the appointment of IP and commercial specialist Sakura Holloway and former Shire Pharmaceuticals Scout Sarah Meibusch.

These key appointments cement OneVentures’ position as one of the most diverse venture capital firms in the world, with recent research[1]showing only 11% of senior investment teams within venture capital firms were women and only 22% were racially diverse.

“Sakura and Sarah join an eight-person investment team that is currently 50% female; with diversity in age, education and cultural background,” said Anne-Marie Birkill, Managing Partner at OneVentures. The three-person OneVentures partnership team is uniquely gender diverse comprising Anne-Marie, Dr Michelle Deaker and Dr Paul Kelly.

The appointments provide additional capacity to source, structure and manage healthcare sector opportunities for the recently launched $170M OneVentures Healthcare Fund III. The Fund is focused on investing in Australian companies commercialising drugs, medical devices and diagnostics in or near clinical development stage.

Sakura Holloway joins OneVentures following two years as Chief IP Counsel at dual-listed Australian biotech company Benitec Biopharma Ltd, where her achievements included managing the company’s IP portfolio and supporting the company’s US IPO and NASDAQ listing.

A registered patent attorney, Sakura’s previous positions have included scientific roles with UTS and the Garvan Institute, and IP/commercial roles with Cephalon, CSIRO and FB Rice. She joins OneVentures as an Investment Analyst providing specialist expertise in IP due diligence and management to the team alongside considerable commercial skills and experience.

Sarah Meibusch joins the OneVentures team in the role of Investment Manager. Sarah’s previous responsibilities included five years scouting for technologies for Shire Pharmaceuticals within Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea and Japan including sourcing the $300M Fibrotech deal.

With a strong understanding of the pharmaceutical, life sciences, medtech and healthcare industries gained through senior roles at Progen Pharmaceuticals, University of Queensland, the Beef CRC and Pyxis Genomics Sarah will be based in OneVenture’s Queensland office but will operate nationally.

Commenting on the appointments, Dr Paul Kelly, Managing Partner and head of OneVentures healthcare practice said: “The appointment of Sakura and Sarah completes our Healthcare sector investment team providing critical resources to support the first stage of the execution of our OneVentures Healthcare Fund III investment plan.

“OneVenture’s hands-on approach to deal structuring and management requires access to an expert and experienced professional team. Sakura and Sarah bring new skills that perfectly complement those of the existing healthcare team members. We are delighted to welcome them to OneVentures.”

-Ends-

For more information, contact:

Amanda Taylor, Honner

02 8248 3750

Anne-Marie Birkill, Managing Partner OneVentures

[email protected]

Dr Paul Kelly, Managing Partner OneVentures

[email protected]

About OneVentures

OneVentures is an Australian venture capital firm with $320M under management, launching its first fund in 2010. The OneVentures Team utilises its strengths in business building to accelerate portfolio company performance. A global growth focus drives investment selection with portfolio companies addressing multi-billion-dollar market opportunities from breakthroughs in healthcare (e.g. needle free vaccine delivery) through to the transformation of online education (e.g. next generation courseware and personalised learning) and the connected world (IoT, SaaS and virtual reality).

OneVentures has three main funds, two of which are actively investing. The OneVentures Innovation and Growth Fund II and OneVentures Healthcare Fund III, have approximately $200M in available capital for technology and healthcare businesses. The OneVentures Healthcare Fund III launched in December 2016 is a $170M fund is licenced under the Commonwealth Government’s Biomedical Translation Fund (BTF) program and is actively seeking investments in Australian companies commercialising medical devices, drugs in clinical development and diagnostics.

Diversity by numbers: The OneVentures Investment Team

Managing partners are women

Investment team are women

In addition, we are:

• an internationally experienced team including individuals from Israel, South Africa and India;

• age diverse with a range of educational qualifications including science, finance, medicine, technology, management and IP.

The investment team is supported by a highly experienced four-person front and back office team.

Read more about OneVentures at www.one-ventures.com

[1]NVCA-Deloitte Human Capital Survey 2016