“Our mandate is crystal clear. We only invest in things that operate in North Carolina,” says Dave Ousterout, general partner at Cape Fear BioCapital, a Durham-based venture capital firm making seed-stage investments in life sciences therapeutic companies. “Duke and UNC and NC State have an incredible wealth of science. We want to turn that science into medicine.”
Launched in the fall of 2024, Cape Fear’s venture fund is dedicated to both supporting NC-based, early-stage therapeutics companies, and to cementing the state’s position as an international nucleus of life science innovation. The firm, Ousterout says, relies on partners like Eshelman Innovation to help grow the innovation ecosystem in North Carolina’s Research Triangle.
“What you do at Eshelman Innovation is incredible,” Ousterout said during the latest episode of the video series “North Carolina Innovators You Should Know,” guest-hosted by Sumitra Pati, Commercial Strategy Director of the Eshelman Innovation Therapeutics Accelerator. “You work closely with professors. You help them think through their ideas, help them think about what’s commercially relevant. You ask, ‘What’s something that patients really need?’ ‘How do you advance something that began as a paper into something that’s ready to be an enterprise? We [at Cape Fear] have to stand at that intersection with you.”
Ousterout, who has a doctorate in biomedical engineering from Duke, has experience as a founder, scientist and executive creating and advising life sciences companies in the Research Triangle area. He is a co-founder and former Chief Scientific Officer of Locus Bio, a venture-backed biotech spun out of NCSU & Duke with over $150 million raised.
In its first 18 months, Cape Fear has invested in five companies. The firm’s goal, Ousterout says, is turning at least 40 high-quality concepts into companies over the next decade.
“It’s not only doable, but I think that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” he says. “We look at the data, and compared to our peers in Philadelphia, in Seattle, in Austin, there is so much room for us to create more companies with the amount of research we already have.”
Through its monthly video series, Eshelman Innovation introduces viewers to individuals working to advance the healthcare innovation ecosystem in North Carolina.
Thank you to the UNC Hussman School of Journalism and Media for filming this interview at the Curtis Media Center.
