We take promising biotech assets from university labs through focused development sprints. Twelve to eighteen months of hard work to de-risk them to the point where venture capital can take over.
Every year, American universities file roughly twenty-five thousand invention disclosures. Fewer than nine hundred become startups. The rest sit unlicensed, most of them indefinitely.
These are not bad ideas. Most are too early for venture capital. Too applied for another grant cycle. Too narrow for corporate development. They sit in tech transfer offices, waiting for someone to do the work that stands between a publication and a company.
We do that work. Translational Development Fund is built to take assets from the bench to the point where a Series A investor can get conviction on them. Not theoretical. Not aspirational. De-risked.
Our core product is a twelve to eighteen month program designed to answer the questions that stand between a lab-stage asset and a term sheet. We fund it, run it, and hand the finished company to venture capital.
We option or license the asset from the university. Align with the inventors on scope. Define the two or three killer experiments that decide the program.
Focused development. In-vivo proof-of-concept, IP hardening, pre-IND de-risking, and founding team recruitment. We manage the vendors and the milestones.
A venture-ready company with clean IP, a clinical thesis, enabling data, and founding leadership. We introduce Series A investors and co-invest on our pro rata.
A mechanism of action or platform approach that hasn't been prosecuted to death. Composition-of-matter or tightly fenced method claims. We read the file wrapper.
In vitro or early animal data showing the core hypothesis works. It does not need to be clean or complete. It needs to be real and replicable.
If the elevator pitch requires a footnote, it's not ready. We want a clear patient population, a measurable endpoint, and a reimbursable path.
Scientific founders who want the asset to succeed and are happy to advise a founding CEO. Academic prestige is welcome. So is leaving operations to someone else.
A development plan where the sprint's output genuinely moves a Tier-1 venture investor off the fence. If the answer is “two more sprints,” the asset isn't for us.
We are flexible on structure. Options, licenses, sponsored research, hybrid arrangements. What stays constant is that we put the capital and the work behind the asset. You share in the upside without committing to build a company.
Start a conversation →TDF is raising a concentrated fund to execute this thesis at scale. Each sprint is a single-asset position with a defined cost, a defined milestone, and a defined exit path. We share thesis detail, portfolio construction, and co-investment rights with qualified LPs.
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