Leslie Kreis Jr

Leslie W. Kreis, Jr. is a co-founder and Managing Partner of BIOS Partners, a Fort Worth/Dallas-based venture firm he launched in 2014 with co-founder Aaron G. L. Fletcher. He brings more than 25 years of investment experience across many types of financial instruments in both global public and private equity markets.

Before founding BIOS, Kreis spent 11 years as a Vice President at HBK Investments, a multi-strategy global hedge fund based in Dallas, where he managed a roughly $3 billion global portfolio composed of stocks, bonds, and derivatives. During his HBK tenure he helped launch the firm's London office and traded across markets in Japan, India, Europe, the UK, Canada, and the U.S. — a background that gives him an unusually markets-driven, risk-oriented lens on early-stage science.

Alongside BIOS, Kreis is Managing Principal at Steelhead Capital Management, where he manages a portfolio of small-business investments and start-up ventures, and he is a founding member of Cowtown Angels, a Fort Worth-based angel investment network. He earned a BBA in Finance from Texas Christian University in 1994.

BIOS Partners is built around the thesis that great science is broadly distributed across the country while venture capital remains concentrated on the coasts. The firm identifies advanced biotech in undervalued markets, then helps cultivate those companies and bring them to market. As of September 2024, BIOS reported investments in roughly 17 companies with 7 IPOs and 2 acquisitions among its outcomes.

• Where they invest: Advanced/clinical-stage (and some preclinical) biotech and medical-device companies; the firm participates from early seed rounds through later-stage growth financings.
• Geographic edge: Targets "overlooked and under-invested markets in the U.S.," particularly the Central U.S., on the belief that "great science is evenly distributed" while capital is not — arbitraging the coastal concentration of biotech VC.
• Sector breadth within biotech: Advanced small molecules, engineered cell therapy, gene therapies, recombinant proteins/antibodies, medical devices, and digital medicines/AI.
• What makes them say yes: Compelling underlying science paired with a path to the clinic and, ultimately, public markets or acquisition — reflected in a portfolio weighted toward companies that reached IPO.
• Investor DNA: A capital-markets and hedge-fund pedigree (global multi-asset portfolio management at HBK) informs a disciplined, valuation- and risk-aware approach to early-stage life sciences.