Co-Founder & Senior Advisor

Robert Nelsen is Co-Founder and Senior Advisor of Rsquared, and Co-Founder and Managing Director of ARCH Venture Partners — the firm that seeded Illumina, Alnylam, and over 50 companies that have each exceeded $1 billion in value. Few investors have shaped the trajectory of modern biotechnology and artificial intelligence more directly.

Since ARCH's founding, Robert has played a central role in the creation, financing, and development of more than 150 companies. His earliest bets include Illumina, now the world leader in genomic sequencing; Alnylam Pharmaceuticals, which pioneered the field of RNA interference therapeutics; Juno Therapeutics, acquired by Celgene; Karuna Therapeutics, acquired by Bristol-Myers Squibb; Array BioPharma, acquired by Pfizer; and Altos Labs, the longevity research institute that became one of the most closely watched science ventures of the decade. More recently, he has been a foundational investor in Xaira Therapeutics, Insitro, Colossal Biosciences, National Resilience, and Seaport Therapeutics — companies that represent the frontier of what biology and computation can do together.

In artificial intelligence, Robert's track record is equally pioneering. He co-founded Project Prometheus and was instrumental in rebooting Stability AI. He seeded R2 Technology, which delivered the first large-scale application of AI in medical imaging, and was Chairman and co-founder of NetBot, which developed the first commercial use of intelligent agents in consumer shopping — decades before the concept entered the mainstream. He also seeded Impinj, a pioneer in self-adaptive silicon and one of the leading RFID manufacturers worldwide.

Robert holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago and a B.S. in Economics and Biology from the University of Puget Sound.