Vijay Pande, former managing partner at a16z, is stepping away from managing billions of dollars.
He co‑founded VZVC with long‑time investor Zach Werner to make fewer, more thoughtful investments.
A smaller operation with a different philosophy
The new venture, named after its founders, operates on a tighter scale.
The firm relies heavily on artificial intelligence for daily operations, a shift from the associate‑heavy model he left behind.
From science of discovery to engineering
He argues biology is moving from a discovery phase to an engineering discipline.
AI and machine learning let computers grasp complex biological systems better than older methods.
The technology helps identify drug targets and assists in the clinical‑trial phase, which remains one of the most expensive parts of drug development.
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The path to this moment mixed steady progress with recent acceleration.
Precision medicine, once based solely on genomics, now includes proteomics and automated measurements.
These tools combined with AI give a fuller picture of a patient’s condition than a static genetic blueprint.
Pande notes that clinical trials still cost hundreds of millions and have a low success rate.
Building trust for the long term
A major hurdle for AI in medicine is the lack of shared data.
Biological data is often walled off by companies protecting their findings.
He suggests building atlases of biological information or foundation models could change this situation.
He envisions open‑source models in biology having broad impact, similar to open‑source large language models.
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Pande cautions that AI cannot solve problems where data simply does not exist.
When scouting founders, he prioritizes integrity over technical brilliance.
He wants partners who can be trusted over a ten‑year horizon and who focus on long‑term goals.
Founders are advised to apply creativity to go‑to‑market challenges, as the business side can be as hard as the technology side.
Impact matters more than volume.
The shift to a smaller firm lets Pande and Werner focus on areas such as AI for healthcare delivery and clinical trials.
Operating with fewer investments enables them to be more hands‑on and less competitive in deal flow.
