A joint venture between Tishman Speyer and Los Angeles-based biopharmaceutical investment firm Bellco Capital has raised $3 billion to develop and buy life science properties across the U.S. and Europe.
The limited partnership, dubbed Breakthrough Properties, raised the funds from “institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds and high net worth individuals.” Breakthrough had initially aimed to raise $1.5 billion, when it opened the fund in 2020.
With the new funding, Breakthrough could spend up to $6 billion on development and acquisitions, according to the Financial Times.
“There is an acute and accelerating need for well-located, cutting-edge lab space,” Tishman Speyer CEO Rob Speyer said in a statement.
National average asking rents for lab, research and development space hit $67.05 per square foot annually in the fourth quarter of 2021 — a 7.8 percent jump compared to the prior three months, according to CBRE.
Demand for space is being driven by an acceleration in venture capital funding for life sciences technology and businesses. Since 2016, VC funding for life sciences has grown more than 320 percent to more than $8 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021.
Breakthrough is currently focused on a few core life science markets in the U.S. — Boston, San Diego and Philadelphia — along with Amsterdam and the United Kingdom.
In Boston, the firm is building a 263,500-square-foot property that is fully leased to CRISPR Therapeutics, a public biotech firm. Across the country in San Diego, Breakthrough is developing a 515,000-square-foot research and development campus, part of which is pre-leased to medical tech firm BD.