The Altman Network

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Persons of Interest and Profiles

Sam Altman Self-Dealing & Conflict Architecture

ArrowMark Partners

Two investors who entered at the Altman-led Series C (September 2021) — the round that took TrialSpark from $100M+ to $1 billion valuation. ArrowMark is an institutional asset manager with a Moderna portfolio position; Doerr is the Kleiner Perkins chairman whose personal relationship with Michael Moritz (Sequoia/Crankstart) predates both of their Formation Bio investments.

ArrowMark Partners

Denver-based institutional investment manager with $19.5 billion in assets under management; entered Formation Bio at the Series C; portfolio includes Moderna Therapeutics; founded by former Janus Capital Group executives who departed during the firm’s market-timing scandal.

ArrowMark Partners (formally ArrowMark Colorado Holdings) is an employee-owned Denver-based institutional investment management firm founded in 2007 by David Corkins and Karen Reidy. The firm manages $19.5 billion in assets on behalf of institutional clients, professional asset allocators, family offices, foundations, endowments, government entities, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds, and collateralized debt obligation vehicles. ArrowMark specializes in alternative credit and capacity-constrained equity strategies, including CLO (collateralized loan obligation) funds, regulatory capital relief, multi-sector credit, and multi-asset investment strategies. Partners include Corkins, Reidy, Kaelyn Abrell, Sanjai Bhonsle, Chad Meade, and Brian Schaub. The firm employs 51-200 people [1] [2] [15].

ArrowMark’s portfolio spans biotechnology, healthcare, genetics, medical devices, life sciences, pharmaceuticals, and biopharma. Notable portfolio companies include Moderna Therapeutics (the COVID-19 mRNA vaccine company), Twilio, and Orchard Therapeutics. CBInsights categorizes ArrowMark in its “Synthetic Biology” expert collection. The firm typically invests in the $50–100 million range and completes 2–6 deals per year [3] [4].

ArrowMark invested in TrialSpark’s Series C (September 2021), the round led by Sam Altman and Lachy Groom that valued the company at $1 billion. ArrowMark is not listed on the Series D (June 2024), suggesting involvement was limited to the unicorn round [5].

Janus Capital Group: The Context of Founding

Both ArrowMark founders held senior positions at Janus Capital Group during a period that included one of the most significant mutual fund scandals of the early 2000s. In September 2003, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer announced an investigation into trading practices at several mutual fund companies, including Janus. The SEC subsequently found that Janus Capital Management had “negotiated, but undisclosed, market timing agreements in which JCM permitted 12 entities to market time certain Janus mutual funds while representing to other shareholders that it did not permit frequent trading or market timing.” Janus had waived redemption fees for the market timers and collected additional advisory fees from the timed funds and associated “sticky assets” [16] [17].

David Corkins was managing the Janus Growth and Income Fund and the Janus Mercury Fund during this period, collectively overseeing approximately $20 billion. The Boston University Law Review paper “The Market Penalty for Mutual Fund Scandals” references Corkins by name as a “fund manager” in the context of the Janus scandal analysis [18]. In December 2003, during the height of the investigation, Corkins was replaced as manager of the Growth and Income Fund by Minyoung Sohn, though he continued temporarily on the Mercury Fund [19].

Karen Reidy was managing the Janus Balanced Fund ($4.6 billion) and the Janus Core Equity Fund, collectively overseeing approximately $10 billion. In April 2005, Janus announced that Reidy would “relinquish her portfolio management responsibilities” — language that differs markedly from a voluntary transition or promotion. Pensions & Investments reported that Reidy was “exploring an opportunity to work in a ‘more strategic role’ for Steve Scheid, Janus Capital CEO” — a description consistent with being moved out of a client-facing position [20] [21].

Both Corkins and Reidy departed Janus and co-founded ArrowMark in 2007, approximately two years after Reidy’s removal from her funds and four years after the scandal broke. Three additional Janus veterans followed them to the new firm. ArrowMark’s SEC-filed Form ADV contains no disclosures — a clean record that stands in contrast to the firm’s founding context [1].

To be clear: neither Corkins nor Reidy has been personally charged with or found to have committed any wrongdoing in connection with the Janus market-timing investigation. The SEC proceedings targeted Janus Capital Management as an entity, not individual portfolio managers. The relevance to this investigation is contextual: ArrowMark’s founders came from an institution that was sanctioned for undisclosed agreements benefiting insiders at the expense of ordinary investors, departed during the scandal period, and subsequently built a $19.5 billion firm that invested in a company (Formation Bio / TrialSpark) whose own nonprofit-to-for-profit financial flows and disclosure practices are under scrutiny in this investigation.

The Moderna Connection and COVID Context

ArrowMark held a position in Moderna — the company that developed one of the two dominant COVID-19 mRNA vaccines — while also investing in a clinical trial company (TrialSpark/Formation Bio) whose Project Covalence conducted COVID-era serology testing funded by Altman’s OpenResearch. The COVID-19 pandemic was the backdrop against which several of these investment relationships formed. Additionally, Mikael Dolsten — who now chairs Formation Bio’s Drug Picking Committee — was Pfizer’s Chief Scientific Officer during the COVID vaccine race. ArrowMark had portfolio exposure to multiple nodes of the pandemic response infrastructure [6].

The Quiet Investor

ArrowMark is the most operationally quiet investor in the Formation Bio capitalization table. Unlike Thrive (whose Kushner-Altman relationship is extensively profiled), Sequoia (whose Moritz-Altman degree-of-removal pattern spans multiple entities), or Sound Ventures (whose Kutcher publicly advocates for AI), ArrowMark has generated virtually no public commentary about its Formation Bio position. The firm has no visible media presence regarding the investment, no named partner associated with the deal in public sources, and no press coverage connecting ArrowMark to the Altman network. For a $19.5 billion firm, this absence of public footprint around a $1 billion unicorn investment is itself notable. Either ArrowMark’s involvement is purely financial (passive institutional capital validating the round) or the relationship runs through channels that don’t surface in public media.

Nodes / Open Questions

  • Which ArrowMark fund or vehicle holds the Formation Bio position? The firm manages multiple strategies across equity, credit, private markets, and CLOs.
  • ArrowMark’s Moderna position — was it concurrent with the TrialSpark Series C, or did the firm hold the positions sequentially?
  • Did ArrowMark participate in the Series D ($372M, June 2024), or was involvement limited to the Series C?
  • Who at ArrowMark sourced and championed the TrialSpark/Formation Bio deal? No named partner is associated with the investment in public sources.
  • Karen Reidy is an Independent Director at Starry Group Holdings (broadband internet). Does Starry intersect with any network entities?
  • ArrowMark manages CLOs and regulatory capital relief strategies. Do any of these vehicles have exposure to healthcare or pharmaceutical debt that could intersect with Formation Bio’s drug acquisition financing?
  • The Janus market-timing scandal involved undisclosed agreements benefiting insiders at the expense of ordinary investors. Does ArrowMark have any policies or disclosures regarding related-party transactions or insider benefit in its current fund structures?
  • ArrowMark’s $19.5B AUM and institutional client base (sovereign wealth funds, government entities, insurance companies) — do any of these clients have healthcare mandates that could create alignment or conflicts with the Formation Bio position?

Sources

  1. [Archive] (https://smartasset.com/financial-advisor/arrowmark-colorado-holdings-review)
  2. [Archive] (https://www.foundersuite.com/firms/arrowmark-partners)
  3. [Archive] (https://www.cbinsights.com/investor/arrowpoint-partners)
  4. [Archive] (https://unicorn-nest.com/funds/arrowmark-partners/)
  5. [Archive] (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareemzaki)
  6. [Archive] (https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/trialspark-rebrands-as-formation-bio-continuing-its-commitment-to-advancing-drug-development-innovation-302006328.html)
  7. [Archive] (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Doerr)
  8. [Archive] (https://techcrunch.com/?p=1187529)
  9. [Archive] (https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/26560)
  10. [Archive] (https://fortune.com/2016/03/31/john-doerr-kleiner-perkins)
  11. [Archive] (https://www.linkedin.com/in/kareemzaki)
  12. [Archive] (https://fastly.tipranks.com/private-companies/investor/john-doerr)
  13. [Archive] (https://aletteraday.substack.com/p/letter-99-mike-moritz-and-john-doerr?open=false)
  14. [Archive] (https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/26560)
  15. [Archive] (https://theorg.com/org/arrowmark-partners)
  16. [Archive] (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001065865/000103570403000660/d08927exv99w1.htm)
  17. [Archive] (https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001065865/000095013404012523/d17812exv99w2.htm)
  18. [Archive] (https://www.bu.edu/law/journals-archive/bulr/volume87n5/documents/KAHAN_v2.pdf)
  19. [Archive] (https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2003/12/08/janus-junk-bond-fund-manager-quits/)
  20. [Archive] (https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2005/04/19/janus-manager-relinquishes-funds/)
  21. [Archive] (https://www.pionline.com/article/20050412/ONLINE/504120713/karen-reidy-will-resign-as-portfolio-manager-of-the-janus-balanced-and)