You might have recently caught wind of FKA, a Cambridge venture capital firm, whose letters stands for “Formerly Known as Atlas.” The firm includes the group of technology VCs that previously had been part of Atlas Venture until the firm split up six months ago.
The name “Formerly Known as Atlas” is only temporary—and it’s also a little awkward, because Atlas Venture does actually continue to exist. And today, the group currently known as Atlas—let’s call them CKA, maybe—announced it has closed a new $280 million fund for investments into biotech companies.
The fund "was significantly oversubscribed beyond the 'hard cap' of the fund, and was originally targeted at $250M," Atlas Venture partner Bruce Booth wrote in a blog post planned for publishing this morning.
The fund, he noted, “had great existing LP support,” as more than 75 percent of the money came from prior limited partner investors. It’s officially the 10th fund under the Atlas Venture name.
The new fund follows Atlas’ biotech investing success stories including Zafgen, an obesity drug company that Atlas incubated, which completed its IPO last year. Other investments have included Stromedix (acquired by Biogen) and Avila (sold to Celgene), along with portfolio companies such as Navitor, Nimbus and Rodin.
Since the split with the tech side, CKA has also moved into its own office in Kendall Square, at 400 Technology Square (leaving the original Cambridge office to FKA).
“We are very proud of Atlas’ long history, and we’re also incredibly excited to be unshackled from the constraints of a hybrid fund and its complexity,” Booth said.
