Overview

Gender

male

Investor Type

Investment Partner

John Hamer is a Managing Partner at DCVC Bio. Prior to DCVC Bio, John was an Investment Director for Monsanto Growth Ventures. Monsanto is a leading global, agricultural company providing products to growers worldwide. Monsanto Growth Ventures, through investment and partnership encourages entrepreneurs, and innovative start-up companies, to take on the challenge of a more sustainable future for world food production.

John Hamer’s career spans more than three decades of research, senior management and investment experience in the life sciences. Prior to joining Monsanto, he was Entrepreneur-in-Residence and later Managing Director and General Partner at Burrill & Company, a San Francisco-based life sciences merchant bank with activities in venture capital, merchant banking and media. John Hamer led investments in numerous of Ag-related start-ups in the U.S., Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Prior to joining Burrill, John Hamer was the CSO and later CEO of Paradigm Genetics/ICORIA, a leading genomics and ag-biotechnology company that completed its IPO on NASDAQ in 2000 and was later acquired by Monsanto.

John Hamer received his Ph.D. in Microbiology from the University of California at Davis and was a Visiting Scientist in Dupont’s Central Research & Development Group. He later joined Purdue University and rose to the rank of full Professor and was the recipient of several national awards including the David Lucille Packard Award, and The National Science Foundation Presidential Faculty Fellowship. At Purdue, John Hamer’s research focused on crop diseases, where he pioneered molecular approaches to disease management and control and worked with numerous international agencies in China, the Philippines and South America.

John Hamer lectures widely on innovation, agriculture and venture capital and is a member of the Board of Trustees for the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), and serves on the Board of Directors for Golden Pine Ventures, a microVC fund in RTP, North Carolina. He is a passionate believer in new growth opportunities that are emerging in the agricultural value chain in food, health, energy, materials and chemicals.