Hoping to increase sales in China’s rapidly growing pharmaceutical market, Eli Lilly and Co. is charging ahead
with
plans to invest $100 million in venture capital in the region over the next several years.
Thanks to hefty 35-percent gross returns on its $60 million first fund, locally based Centerfield Capital Partners LP has
raised nearly twice as much for its second. This month, the venture capital firm closed on $116 million from a variety of
investors. As before, Centerfield’s 50 limited partners include major Hoosier institutions. But this time, numerous big banks,
insurance companies and pension funds from outside state lines were also investors.
A former Silicon Valley sales executive and a Cincinnati investment manager have formed a venture fund here that’s trying
to raise $100 million to invest in the new darlings of the investment world: clean technology firms. Clean Wave Ventures founders
Scott Prince and Rick Kieser are banking on soaring energy costs attracting investors to the risky but potentially lucrative
realm of alternative energy and transportation and related fields.
Back in 1999, investors in Gazelle TechVentures expected a sprint to spectacular profits. Instead, they got a marathon slog.
According to Gazelle Chairman and largest investor Scott Jones, it was like training for a race on a sunny day, then running
it through a blizzard.
The city’s largest hospital system will try its hand at high-stakes investing. Clarian Health Partners is forming its own
venture-capital fund, called Clarian Health Ventures, to invest in fast-growing companies and finance the commercialization
of research conducted at Clarian or by its staff.
