Robert Nelsen is a Senior Advisor at Red Cell. He is a co-founder and a Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners. He joined ARCH at its founding and played a significant role in the creation, early sourcing, financing and development of more than 150 companies, including 39 which have reached valuations exceeding $1 billion.

Mr. Nelsen is focused on generating new ideas for disruptive technologies or business models and partnering with founding management teams and entrepreneurs to execute on these visions by advancing novel platform technologies with the overarching goal of improving health care and outcomes.

Some of his notable early-stage investments include Illumina (ILMN), Alnylam Pharmaceuticals (ALNY), Juno Therapeutics (JUNO – acquired by Celgene), Beam Therapeutics (BEAM), Karuna Therapeutics (KRTX), Altos Labs, EQRx, Lyell Immunopharma (LYEL), Array BioPharma (acquired by Pfizer), Unity Biotechnology (UBX), Hua Medicine (2552:HK), Vir Biotechnology (VIR), Agios Pharmaceuticals (AGIO), Sage Therapeutics (SAGE), GRAIL (acquired by Illumina), Gossamer Bio (GOSS), Ikaria (acquired by Mallinckrodt), Kythera Biopharmaceuticals (KYTH – acquired by Allergan), Receptos (RCPT – acquired by Celgene), Aviron (AVIR – acquired by MedImmune), Denali Therapeutics (DNLI), Rubius Therapeutics (RUBY), Syros Pharmaceuticals (SYRS), Sana Biotechnology (SANA), Verve Therapeutics (VERV), Brii Biosciences (2137:HK), Bluebird Bio (BLUE), R2 Technology (acquired by Hologic), Caliper Life Sciences (CALP – acquired by PerkinElmer), Trubion Pharmaceuticals (TRBN – acquired by Emergent Biosolutions), Adolor (ADLR – acquired by Cubist), deCODE Genetics (DCGN – acquired by Amgen), Editas (EDIT), 10x Genomics, Semma Therapeutics (acquired by Vertex), and IDUN Pharmaceuticals (acquired by Pfizer).

Mr. Nelsen is a director of VIR, SANA, LYEL, National Resilience, Insitro, Prime Medicine, Nutcracker Therapeutics, Maze Therapeutics, Neumora Therapeutics, Brii Biosciences, and serves as Chairman of Hua Medicine, among others. He previously served as a Trustee of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Institute, the Institute of Systems Biology, and was a director of the National Venture Capital Association.

Mr. Nelsen holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. from the University of Puget Sound with majors in Economics and Biology.

Board of Directors

Senior Advisors