Print（PDF/105KB） Feb. 01, 2021 Corporate

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Announces Investment in a Venture Capital Fund

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma Co., Ltd. (Head Office: Osaka, Japan; Representative Director, President and CEO: Hiroshi Nomura) announced today that it has entered into an agreement with Kicker Venture Partners I, LLC (Principal Office: California, U.S.; headed by Masashi Kiyomine) under which Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma will invest up to a cumulative total of USD20 million (approximately JPY2.0 billion) in Kicker Ventures I, L.P. (hereinafter, the "Fund"), a venture capital fund created by Kicker Venture Partners I, LLC in January 2021.

The Fund is focused on investing in early-stage companies that seek business opportunities primarily in the U.S., Canada, and Japan by harnessing digital healthcare technologies such as digital therapy, smart devices, data analysis and artificial intelligence (AI), personalized medicine, and cutting-edge therapeutic devices and pharmaceutical products. Under the agreement, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is entitled to services tailored to our needs, including support for seed searches and partnerships with tech companies from other industries. In collaboration with Co-Studio Co., Ltd., one of the Fund's portfolio companies, Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma intends to forge ahead with the development of innovative healthcare solutions by facilitating the commercialization of new projects and human resource development through cross-sectoral collaboration.

Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma is working on the provision of new value that will conceivably contribute to "wide-ranging well-being" in business fields other than pharmaceuticals. With a focus on the preventive medical care and patient care, as well as treatment of diseases, we are actively engaged in the frontier business in areas in which we can create synergies with our own pharmaceuticals business. Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma expects that the investment in the Fund will bring us opportunities for new business development by allowing us to collect information on promising projects that involve medical devices and digital healthcare technologies, initiate new projects, and develop talented human resources, all within the scope of the frontier business.

<An outline of the fund>

Fund name:	Kicker Ventures I, L.P.
Creation:	January 2021
Main office:	Silicon Valley, U.S.
Fund size:	Up to USD100 million
Term:	10 years
Investments:	Cutting-edge technologies in life sciences (digital healthcare technologies)
Investment regions:	U.S., Canada, and Japan