Merck Expands Corporate Venture Fund M Ventures with a New Investment of € 600 Million

Merck Expands Corporate Venture Fund M Ventures with a New Investment of € 600 Million

Darmstadt, Germany, December 8, 2021 – Merck, a leading science and technology company, today announced the expansion of its strategic, corporate venture capital arm M Ventures. The new investment of € 600 million allocated to M Ventures will be deployed over the next five years. This is the third increase in financial commitment announced by Merck since the creation of M Ventures in 2009. The increase will be used to further grow both the number and size of investments.

“Over the past decade, M Ventures has established itself globally as a leading partner to the biotech and tech venture ecosystems,” said Belén Garijo, Chair of the Executive Board and CEO of Merck. “Given its extensive expertise in identifying new technologies and capabilities, we aim to increase our annual financial investments. This will enable M Ventures to continue to advance our pioneering innovation strategy, to deliver sustainable business performance and to be a catalyst for innovative companies to develop breakthrough technologies”, she added.

Since inception, M Ventures has been instrumental in the development of over 80 global companies from creation to exit, helping advance multiple medicines and technologies to market launch. M Ventures will continue to invest in visionary companies that find new ways to treat the most challenging diseases, empower scientists with cutting-edge research and development tools, develop new technologies to improve the way in which information is accessed, stored, processed, and displayed and provide novel solutions for increased sustainability in the science and technology ecosystem.

The new capital will allow M Ventures to continue to utilise its expertise to create and finance a new and larger portfolio of innovative companies that align with the future strategies of Merck businesses. In the last two years, M Ventures has validated its dual foci as a strategic and financial corporate venture capital fund with several of its companies establishing collaborations with Merck, and others creating strong financial returns through acquisitions or public market listings supporting its evergreen remit.

About M Ventures

M Ventures is the strategic, corporate venture capital arm of Merck. Its evergreen mandate is to invest in innovative technologies and products with the potential to significantly impact Merck’s core business areas. From its headquarters in Amsterdam and offices in Germany, US and Israel M Ventures invests globally in transformational ideas driven by great entrepreneurs. M Ventures takes an active role in its portfolio companies and teams up with entrepreneurs and co-investors to translate innovation towards commercial success. M Ventures’ focus on identifying and financing novel solutions to some of the most difficult challenges, can be evidenced through its early investments into companies such as Artios Pharma, DNA Script, Memryx, Mosa Meat, Padlock Therapeutics, Progyny Inc, and SeeQC, in addition to many others. An evergreen fund is a fund with an indefinite fund-life or in other words, which recycles any cash proceeds generated by the fund to replenish the fund and thereby continue investing indefinitely.

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About Merck

Merck, a leading science and technology company, operates across healthcare, life science and electronics. Around 58,000 employees work to make a positive difference to millions of people’s lives every day by creating more joyful and sustainable ways to live. From advancing gene editing technologies and discovering unique ways to treat the most challenging diseases to enabling the intelligence of devices – the company is everywhere. In 2020, Merck generated sales of € 17.5 billion in 66 countries. Scientific exploration and responsible entrepreneurship have been key to Merck’s technological and scientific advances. This is how Merck has thrived since its founding in 1668. The founding family remains the majority owner of the publicly listed company. Merck holds the global rights to the Merck name and brand. The only exceptions are the United States and Canada, where the business sectors of Merck operate as EMD Serono in healthcare, MilliporeSigma in life science, and EMD Electronics.