Sahir Raoof, a former SignalFire investor and executive at clinical trial recruitment startup Iterative Health and oncology data company Flatiron Health, raised $27.5 million for his debut venture fund, Proximal Ventures. The firm focuses on AI-driven startups transforming drug development infrastructure and services.
Proximal plans to invest $500,000 to $1.5 million in pre-seed and seed-stage companies. Raoof said pharmaceutical companies have historically outsourced drug development stages to service providers, and he believes AI can automate this work at lower cost and faster timelines. "For a long time, the assumption was that pharma is not a great buyer of software, but a really good buyer of services," Raoof told TechCrunch.
The firm has already backed seven startups, including ChronicleBio, co-founded by former OpenAI executive Fidji Simo. ChronicleBio uses AI to analyze biological and medical data to understand chronic diseases and identify potential treatments.
Proximal's limited partners include venture firms SignalFire and Kleiner Perkins, Bertelsmann Healthcare Investments, and individual investors including Dimension Capital co-founders Nan Li and Zavain Dar. Amy Abernethy, co-founder of Highlander Health and former principal deputy commissioner of the FDA, also invested. Abernethy worked with Raoof at Flatiron Health, where she served as chief medical officer. She said his ability to build relationships and identify industry bottlenecks, combined with his understanding of healthcare market needs, will make him successful in venture.