Bryan Johnson created OS Fund in October 2014, a year after he sold Braintree, a mobile payment processing company he founded in 2007, to eBay for $800 million. Together with Jeff Klunzinger, the former CFO of West Family Investments, the Fund was launched with $100 million of personal capital; Johnson and Klunzinger serve as the fund’s General Partners. The fund draws its name from the acronym for operating system, the software that underlies the basic functions of computers and provides a foundation for other applications. OS Fund focuses on investment in technologies and platforms in genomics, synthetic biology, computationally derived therapeutics, advanced materials, and diagnostics. In September 2015, OS Fund published the methodology it uses to evaluate investments in the field of synthetic biology. Johnson said the fund publicly released the "playbook" on its website to encourage others to invest in emerging sciences.
Origins
Johnson spent two years in impoverished Ecuadorian communities and, at age 21, was motivated by his experience to set a goal to build a company, retire by age 30, and then devote himself and his resources to improving the lives of others. In line with these interests, in response to a pullback in federal support of research and development, and because of a general reluctance by more traditional venture capital firms to make science-related investments that could lead to disruptive change, Johnson created OS Fund.
Investments
OS Fund focuses on early-stage, computationally driven companies that utilize artificial intelligence and machine learning to develop platform technologies in the following sectors:
OS Fund notes that its earliest investments--which demonstrated a wider range of subject matters--were entirely self-funded as they proved their investment thesis and built their core team. Notable OS Fund investments include the following:
Ginkgo Bioworks, a Boston-based biotechnology company that uses genetic engineering to produce bacteria with industrial applications; recently valued at $4.2 billion.
NuMat Technologies, pioneers of metal-organic frameworks that utilize high-performance computing to design material-enabled products.
Atomwise, a San Francisco-based developer of an AI-powered drug discovery platform.
Arzeda, a protein and enzymatic design platform used to develop transformative products across industries
twoXAR, an AI-driven drug discovery platform.
Lygos, a biological engineering platform that converts low-cost sugar to high-value chemicals.
Tempo, a software-driven smart factory that merges data, analytics, and automation to rapidly and precisely print complex circuit board assemblies.
Truvian, a benchtop blood testing diagnostic system that provides lab-accurate results in 20 minutes.
Catalog, a Boston company focused on harnessing DNA to store data. The company recently showed it could store 14 gigabytes of data from Wikipedia.org in DNA molecules.
A-Alpha Bio, a drug discovery platform that simultaneously sorts through millions of protein interactions for multiple targets.
JUST, a San Francisco-based food technology company focused on sustainable plant-based food products, a 100% plant-based egg alternative made from mung beans.
Matternet, the builder and operator of drone logistics networks to transport goods on demand. In 2019, they partnered with UPS to transport medical samples across hospital systems as well as UPS and CVS Pharmacy to make at-home prescription deliveries.
