Kouki Harasaki

Kouki is the founding / managing partner at Bioluminescence Ventures based in San Francisco. The firm invests in transformational platforms that are developing first-in-class and/or best-in-class therapeutics.

Kouki has over 25 years of biomedical science experience working across major health systems, research institutes, biopharmaceutical corporations, technology companies and venture capital firms. Prior to founding Bioluminescence Ventures, he was a managing director at M12 / Microsoft Ventures, where he led life science investments and helped develop Microsoft Life Science corporate strategy. Prior to M12, Kouki was a senior partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he managed four partners and worked across the portfolio of bio fund companies.

Prior to his time in venture, Kouki held drug discovery, animal pharmacology, strategy, finance, and business development roles at Novartis AG and Baxalta/Shire. He has led over $600M in financing deals that have funded over 25 therapeutics programs across stages (discovery to marketed), across therapeutic areas (CVM, Immunology, Oncology, Neuro/CNS), and across modalities (small molecules, biologics, genome editors, cell therapies).

Kouki earned a B.A. in molecular/cell biology from Cornell University, a Ph.D. in clinical biochemistry from the University of Cambridge (Wellcome Trust Fellow), and an MBA from Harvard Business School (Robert S. Kaplan Fellow).