Reed Jobs's Yosemite closes $350M second fund to make cancer non-lethal
What's the deal? YosemiteDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, the cancer-focused venture firm founded by Reed Jobs, has closed its second fund at $350 million. Limited partners include pharma giants AmgenDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom → and AbbVieDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, MIT, Memorial Sloan Kettering, and venture investor John Doerr.
Why now? The fund is a jump from January's $200 million first close, and it arrives as biotech recovers from the slump that gripped the sector when Jobs launched Yosemite in 2023. He credits scientific gains for the shift. "You couldn't have told me four years ago that we'd be sitting here today and we would have the advancements in GLP-1s, in immunotherapy, in vaccines now, and against pancreatic cancer that we've achieved," he said.
What's the endgame? Jobs — son of the late Steve Jobs — wants to make cancer non-lethal rather than cure it. He points to the trajectory of AIDS, which drug cocktails rendered far less deadly in the US. "That's what I want for cancer patients," he said.
What's the model? Yosemite blends traditional venture bets — early, sizable stakes aimed at venture-scale returns — with philanthropic grants to university scientists. "With philanthropy, we can fail really cheaply," Jobs said, arguing grants let the firm test ideas before committing larger sums.
Jobs, who started working in cancer labs as a teenager when his father fell ill, spun Yosemite out of Laurene Powell Jobs's Emerson Collective in 2023. Its first fund, closed in 2024 at $263 million, backed AI drug discovery startup Chai DiscoveryDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, cervical cancer screening firm Teal HealthDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, epi-therapeutic maker Tune TherapeuticsDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →, and care navigation startup Sage CareDealroom has a profile for this one. Try Dealroom →.
That range reflects how Jobs expects progress to come. "I don't think a company alone is going to make cancer non-lethal," he said. "It's going to be a really long push, probably cancer by cancer."
The signal: A $350 million fund backed by both pharma majors and a Silicon Valley icon marks renewed investor appetite for cancer science after a lean stretch. Yosemite's grant-plus-venture structure is a bet that the fastest route to returns runs through de-risking research before the money scales.
Read more: fortune.com
Image credit: History at NIH
