PANDE EXITS A16Z BIOTECH FOR SMALLER AI-FOCUSED FUND

Pande's shift reflects a broader pivot in biotech toward computational approaches. He argues biology is transitioning from a discovery-driven science to an engineering discipline, enabled by AI tools that can accelerate development cycles. The move comes as clinical trials remain prohibitively expensive—a persistent bottleneck in drug development. Pande sees open, shared datasets as key to unlocking AI's potential in medicine, rather than proprietary data hoarded by individual firms. By scaling down from a16z's megafund model, VZVC adopts a more targeted investment thesis. Pande's approach prioritizes fewer, higher-conviction bets over volume. "We're not doing 30 bets a year," he noted, signaling a departure from the spray-and-pray venture model. The strategy aligns with growing skepticism about traditional biotech venture returns, where winners remain rare and timelines stretch decades. AI-native tools promise to compress those timelines and reduce development costs.