Los Angeles area, CA-based venture capital firm Westlake Village BioPartners has launched two new funds totaling $500m.

The new vehicles will enable the firm to build and invest in promising life sciences companies with transformative human therapeutic technologies.

The first fund, known as Opportunity 1, is $70m and allows Westlake to invest additional Series B or later-round capital into promising companies they incubated or invested in with their original fund, Westlake BioPartners 1 (WBP1).

The second fund, Westlake Village BioPartners 2 Fund (WBP2), is $430m and will focus on incubating and investing in approximately 12 Series A startups or co-lead Series A rounds with other investors, and will also allow for additional Series B or later-round investments in the most promising of these companies.

The firm has already invested in three new companies with their WBP2 fund: a gene therapy company based in San Diego and two Los Angeles area-based companies—a seed-stage company focused on oncology, and a Series A company with an initial focus on immunology and providing patients life-changing new treatment options by identifying, acquiring, and accelerating development and commercialization of promising drug candidates.

Co-founded by managing directors Beth Seidenberg, MD, and Sean Harper, MD, Westlake Village BioPartners is focused on incubating and building life sciences companies with entrepreneurs who have the potential to bring transformative therapies to patients.

Westlake has been working with Alexandria Real Estate Equities, Inc., an owner, operator, and developer of life sciences campuses in the nation’s top innovation clusters, to build out laboratory and office space in the greater Los Angeles area. Five of the firm’s WBP1 Fund companies are in Alexandria’s new life sciences space for early stage companies in Thousand Oaks, and one is soon graduating to a larger facility. Two of the three initial WBP2 Fund companies will be in the Alexandria space.

Westlake’s first fund, established in 2018, has invested in or incubated 11 companies to date, with more than half in the Los Angeles area.