Bradley Bolzon

Brad Bolzon is Chairman and Managing Director of Versant Ventures, where he leads the firm, serves as the principal architect of its strategy, and oversees operations across North America and Europe. He combines roughly 13 years of global pharmaceutical-industry leadership with more than 20 years as a venture capitalist, making him one of the longer-tenured figures at the firm, which he joined in the early 2000s.

Before venture capital, Bolzon held senior operating roles in large pharma. He served as Executive Vice President and Global Head of Business Development, Licensing & Alliances at Roche, where he built partnerships with more than 75 venture-backed biotech companies. Earlier, he held executive roles at Eli Lilly spanning drug discovery, clinical research, regulatory affairs, and business development — a breadth of functional experience that underpins Versant's hands-on, science-first approach to company building.

Bolzon holds a Master of Science and a Ph.D. in Pharmacology, both from the University of Toronto. His scientific training and deal-making background inform Versant's model of incubating companies through its in-house "Discovery Engines," where scientific teams work directly with academic founders to translate research into venture-backed therapeutics companies.

Over his career his investments — including Amira, Okairos, Speedel, Quanticel, Novira, Flexion, CRISPR Therapeutics, BioTie, Jecure, BlueRock, Black Diamond, Northern Biologics, and Monte Rosa — have collectively generated more than $2 billion in returns for Versant stakeholders. He was a founding board member of CRISPR Therapeutics, helping shape its vision and strategy from inception, and served on its board for nearly a decade before stepping down in early 2026.

• Invests across the healthcare sector at all stages of company development, with an emphasis on the discovery and development of novel therapeutics.
• Favors a venture-creation / company-formation model: Versant frequently founds and incubates companies in-house through its Discovery Engines rather than only backing existing startups.
• Looks for companies built on differentiated science and strong academic founders; the firm partners scientific teams directly with founders to build companies from the ground up.
• Firm-level check sizes run roughly $5M to $50M, with flexibility to support companies from seed through growth, backed by ~$2.4B under management.
• Values partnership discipline and translational strength — a reflection of Bolzon's own background structuring 75+ biotech partnerships at Roche and building companies through multiple stages of development.