Family offices: Quietly putting money to work in biotech startups

Family offices. Who are they? What do they do? Most of the time, they’re not talking.

Download the exclusive list of family offices that invest in biotech companies.  

Regardless of what category they belong in, a variety of reasons are driving the trend toward actively managed family money. There's a desire for privacy, confidentiality, passing of family wealth from one generation to the next, mitigating interfamily disputes, and desire to protect wealth and maximize returns. What’s relevant to biotech entrepreneurs, however, is a newfound willingness to invest in traditionally high-risk/high-return assets like biotech.

One self-made family office investor in biotech, who spoke on the condition that he not be named, explained the reticence on several levels. He said:

"Now that I have money, I’m beginning to understand. About one out of 10 people coming to see you are trying to steal your money. They’re total frauds…if you’re born into money, it sometimes seems like everyone comes in through the door, trying to steal your money. You become distrustful of things like crazy biotech ideas. In particular, you should be incredibly wary of these pitches in which ‘Your mother died of cancer, and we’re working on that type of cancer.’ Your guard should be up."

There certainly is good reason to be careful -- remember Rupert Murdoch and others buying into Theranos? Still, a couple trends are contributing to a lowering of the guard, at least in certain
situations.

Read more to find out who Luke Timmerman, Founder of Timmerman Report, has added list of active family offices in biotech, and what they are interested in.