Which VCs are most active in genomics?

Lots of venture capital firms (VCs) are active in the biotech sector, but are there any that preferentially invest in genomics companies? To find out, I looked at the portfolios of some of the most prominent biotech VCs in the world. The resulting list is below.

Most (12 out of 16) of the VCs on my list currently have at least one investment in a genomics company, but none has more than two. This implies that genomics companies form part of a healthy VC investment portfolio, but that they do not consider it sensible to invest into this area too much.

I can think of two reasons for this: Either VCs consider genomics companies risky compared to other biotechs, or there are not enough promising genomics startups out there to make such a specialisation sensible.

Does anyone have any views on this?

List of venture capital firms, by investments in genomics companies

• 2 genomics investments
• MPM Capital, (48 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: 23andMe and PrimeraDx
• Alta Partners (56 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: Genedata and VitrOmics)
• OrbiMed Advisors (52 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: Complete Genomics and Good Start)
• 1 genomics investment
• Domain Associates (57 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: BioNano)
• HealthCare Ventures (39 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: PathoGenetix)
• ARCH Venture Partners (44 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: Illumina)
• Flagship Ventures (46 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: Helicos)
• SV Life Sciences (74 life science investments, of which in genomics: Good Start)
• Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (50 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: Foundation Medicine)
• InterWest Partners (48 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: PrimeraDx)
• New Enterprise Associates (82 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: 23andMe)
• Quaker BioVentures (43 life sciences investments, of which in genomics: RainDance)
• No genomics investments
• Polaris Venture Partners (40 life sciences investments)
• Sanderling Ventures (23 life sciences investments)
• Sofinnova Ventures (18 life sciences investments)
• Burrill & Company (29 life sciences investments)

Approach

I downloaded a list of top biotech VCs. Visiting the websites of those firms, I counted the their total number of current investments in the life sciences and healthcare, and the number of those investments that are specifically in companies that are active in genomics. I excluded firms whose main business is drug discovery, even if they use genomics-based approaches, from this definition. Obviously, I could not include investments that the VCs chose not to disclose on their websites either.