Reed Jobs's Yosemite Bets Big on Oncology Amid NIH Risk
12 Jul 2026
Reed Jobs, son of Steve Jobs, is leading Yosemite, an oncology-focused venture firm he launched in 2023, deeper into a sector defined by both massive scientific promise and steep financial risk. The firm, now a 17-person team with 20 companies in its first fund, announced the first close of its second fund earlier this year, targeting $350 million — a bet placed just as federal research funding faces its most serious threat in over a decade.
The bet: oncology as a large, structured opportunity
Oncology represents 40% of biotech, according to the report, underscoring why Yosemite has built its entire thesis around cancer-focused ventures. About a third of the new $350 million fund is earmarked for companies Yosemite is creating itself, rather than purely backing outside founders — a model that blends venture investing with in-house company formation.
The firm has also built a philanthropic layer into its structure: 2.5% of assets under management flows into a donor-advised fund, which generates roughly $1 million a year from management fees. Reed Jobs has framed the firm's ambitions around scientific originality, saying of Yosemite's approach: "we think we need to go make them with new knowledge."
Signs of momentum in the sector
The report points to concrete evidence of oncology's therapeutic and commercial progress. Revolution Medicines reportedly doubled the survival rate for the most common form of pancreatic cancer, from 12 to 24 months. On the deal side, Eli Lilly's $7 billion acquisition of Kelonia signals that large pharmaceutical acquirers remain willing to pay significant sums for oncology-adjacent assets — a potential exit pathway for startups in the space. Historically, only about 15% of the genome was considered druggable, meaning any expansion of that figure could open new therapeutic targets for investors and founders alike.
The risk: NIH funding uncertainty
Yosemite's expansion comes against a backdrop of proposed cuts to the National Institutes of Health budget. An administration reportedly requested a cut of up to 40% at one point, followed by a separate proposal this year for a 12% cut. The report does not clarify how these two figures relate to each other or whether they stem from the same request — a gap worth flagging for readers trying to gauge the real scale of the threat.
Historical precedent offers a cautionary data point: the largest NIH cut ever enacted was just 1%, back in 2009, yet it still resulted in 7,000 NIH scientist job losses. A cut in the 12-40% range, if enacted, could plausibly translate into far deeper disruption to the research workforce and pipeline that oncology startups often depend on — though NIH funding retains more than 90% public approval, suggesting political resistance to steep cuts may be substantial.
The economics of cancer trials
Compounding the funding risk is the underlying difficulty of oncology drug development itself. A Phase 3 cancer trial costs approximately $260 million on average, and only about 1 in 3 such trials succeeds. That combination of high capital intensity and a roughly two-thirds failure rate means portfolio companies in this space carry substantial risk regardless of the funding environment — a risk Yosemite is choosing to absorb at scale with its $350 million target.
Why founders should care
For founders operating in or adjacent to oncology and biotech, several signals in this report are worth weighing carefully:
- Funding uncertainty is likely to persist. With NIH budget cut proposals ranging from 12% to 40%, founders relying on federally-backed research pipelines should probably prepare for reduced grant availability or slower academic collaboration in the near term, even if public approval for NIH funding suggests cuts may be moderated politically.
- Capital requirements in oncology remain high. Given the $260 million average cost of Phase 3 trials and a 1-in-3 success rate, founders in this space should likely plan for significant capital reserves and a higher tolerance for binary outcomes.
- Exit pathways may still be active. Large acquisitions such as Eli Lilly's $7 billion purchase of Kelonia suggest that strategic acquirers continue to see value in oncology-adjacent biotech, which could mean exit opportunities remain viable even amid funding headwinds.
- Investor models may be shifting. Yosemite's structure — combining internally created companies with external investment and a built-in donor-advised fund — could indicate that some investors are experimenting with hybrid models that blend venture returns with scientific and philanthropic goals, a trend worth monitoring for founders seeking capital partners.
What's missing
The report leaves several open questions: the current size or performance of Yosemite's first fund isn't specified, the exact companies in that 20-company portfolio aren't named, and there's no data on investment returns to date. It's also unclear exactly how the "new knowledge" Reed Jobs references is being generated or applied in Yosemite's portfolio companies. Founders and investors watching this space should treat the firm's second-fund ambitions as a signal of confidence in oncology's long-term opportunity — but one still clouded by real funding and execution risk.