Imfino News

Bryan Johnson of Braintree announces OS Fund II. OS Fund is the next generation of impact investing, supporting entrepreneurs combining science and technology (deep tech) to address problems on a global scale.

Venice, CA, August 7, 2018 - Bryan Johnson and Jeff Klunzinger are raising $250 million for OS Fund II — following a successful $100M OS Fund I. OS Fund is a venture capital fund that invests in entrepreneurs and companies that develop breakthrough discoveries in science to address our most pressing global problems.

OS Fund I made 28 investments total, with 27 receiving follow on investment, four valued at over a billion dollars, and two acquired. According to PitchBook, OS Fund’s investments were among the top 10% of U.S. funds in performance. The success of OS Fund has proven that it’s possible to achieve results by breaking the rules that traditionally govern deep tech investing. OS Fund invested in the best, which resulted in nearly half of OS Fund I’s founders, co-founders, lead/senior scientists, and directors of research being women and people of color.

Johnson and his co-founder Jeff Klunzinger started OS Fund believing that emergent global challenges require a new philosophy of investing and problem-solving. OS Fund is the next generation of impact investing — supporting and delivering on revolutionary innovations that solve problems on a global scale, at the operating system level. OS Fund invests in entrepreneurs using applied intelligence to commercialize breakthrough discoveries in genomics, synthetic biology, diagnostics, new materials, and data and energy, which creates market-ready solutions to the growing threats we face in public health, natural resources, and global infrastructure.

From preservation and recycling of natural resources, to seeking cures for diseases and building the infrastructure for a global biological immune system, OS Fund has invested in companies whose innovative thinking has led to new and sustainable ways to improve the human condition.

“Biology, materials, chemistry, and genomics don’t always get the sexy headlines, but investments in deep tech — the combination of science and technology — are going to enable us to solve our most vexing problems and fuel the next great revolutions,” said Bryan Johnson, co-founder of OS Fund. “We have the tools to tinker with the fundamental building blocks of ourselves and our planet, at every level: atoms, molecules, DNA, and proteins. OS Fund II is focused on enabling entrepreneur scientists to make revolutionary breakthroughs and rewrite the operating systems of life.”

OS Fund II has invested in 12 portfolio companies for a total of $24.9 million — nearly 10% of the fund.

Investments include Arzeda, NuMat Technologies, and UBiome.

NuMat is a manufacturing company, on the atomic scale. They have commercialized an innovative class of nanomaterials known as metal-organic frameworks (MOFs), whose size and shape can be programmed at the atomic level to extract rare resources from our oceans, our soil, and even the very air we breathe. OS Fund led the fundraising that supported the development of NuMat’s ION-X, a sub-atmospheric storage system for hazardous gases, that went to market in 2016.

“Developing these types of technologies can be considered a moonshot, but that’s what we do best,” says NuMat CEO Ben Hernandez. “OS Fund’s support has allowed us to make this vision a reality and do the deep, sustained product development that results in market-ready solutions that create a cleaner, more sustainable world.”

OS Fund company Arzeda is thinking outside the evolutionary box, designing proteins that nature never evolved. They’re applying these novel biological designs to improve agriculture, medicine, and manufacturing. OS Fund led their November 2017 $15.2M series A. Arzeda is currently supplying their proteins for manufacturers such as Mitsubishi Chemical and DuPont.

“It was largely because of OS Fund’s support and leadership in our early stages as a company that we were able to deliver on our initial products and achieve commercial production,” said Daniela Grabs, Arzeda’s co-founder and VP Operations. “The enhanced capabilities of our technology will fundamentally change every economic sector and impact our environment in positive ways.”

OS Fund finances key IP of its companies while in the critical stages of development, enabling them to bring their technologies to market and paving the way for new discoveries.

For more information, visit osfund.co/osf2.

About OS Fund

OS Fund invests in entrepreneurs using applied intelligence to commercialize breakthrough discoveries in genomics, synthetic biology, diagnostics, new materials, and data and energy. We seek out platform enabling technologies that accelerate discovery and commercialization. We never invest in a single molecule, model or algorithm. We do hard science investing with technology level risk. We work with our portfolio companies to develop foundational IP that solves real-world challenges and paves a path for commercialization. We’ve thoughtfully constructed a cross-disciplinary group of companies that are each uniquely contributing to the robust ecosystem they all need to thrive.

About Bryan Johnson

Prior to OS Fund, Bryan built Braintree, which he sold to PayPal in 2013 for $800M. Bryan has an MBA from the University of Chicago and a BA from BYU. Bryan is also an avid adventurer. He has climbed some of the highest peaks in the world, raced in the African desert, explored an active volcano and built a snow cave in the Arctic. He is a pilot, the father of three and author of children's book Code 7.

About Jeff Klunzinger

Jeff was a founding member and CFO of West Family Investments. In his role there, he successfully led a team of seasoned investment professionals through some of the most difficult times in financial market history. Jeff began his career at Ernst & Young where he advised several of the nation’s leading families on complex estate and investment plans and strategies. Jeff is a Certified Public Accountant and earned his BA in Accounting from Michigan State University. In his off time, Jeff enjoys tennis, golf, SCUBA and travel.