Vijay Pande left a $4 billion role at a16z to start VZVC, a small firm making about five investments a year.
He believes AI can improve drug discovery and trials.
VZVC uses AI agents instead of associates, and focuses on healthcare delivery and clinical trials.
What happened
Vijay Pande, who grew a16z's healthcare practice to manage close to $4 billion, left last June to co-found VZVC with Zach Werner. The new firm makes about five concentrated bets a year instead of 30.
Why it matters
Pande argues biology is becoming an engineering discipline, where AI can design drugs and even run trials. He says the failure rate for drugs is high (only 20% succeed from first to third trial) because animal models aren't predictive of humans, and AI could be better.
What to watch
VZVC relies on AI agents instead of hiring associates, so the investment team is just Pande and Werner. Pande is focusing on AI for healthcare delivery and AI for clinical trials, and expects founder relationships to last 5 to 10 years plus.
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Pande's move reflects a broader shift in bio investing toward concentrated, hands-on approaches. After a decade at a16z, he now favors small teams and deeper involvement, citing inspirations like Antonio Gracias and Thrive. He sees AI as transforming biology from discovery to engineering, but warns that AI can't overcome missing data — a key challenge in biology where data isn't publicly scrapable. His firm's use of AI agents instead of associates is a notable experiment in operational efficiency.
The exit from a16z, where he managed close to $4 billion, came last June. His new firm, VZVC, is intentionally small, with just him and Werner, and about five bets per year. He emphasizes close, long-term relationships with founders, expecting them to last 5 to 10 years plus. This model avoids competing for hot rounds, as people make room for them.
Pande's focus areas are AI for healthcare delivery and AI for clinical trials. He believes AI can help personalise medicine, comparing an individual's data to themselves rather than population averages. However, he cautions against hype: AI can find insights humans can't, but if data is lacking, AI can't magically solve the problem.
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