DCR

Dr. Charles Roberts

Ark Invest

Chief Investment Strategist

Description

As Chief Investment Strategist, Charles is responsible for providing inputs into research and strategies on both public and private markets, with a particular focus on AI and multiomics. In addition, Charles plays a key role in the strategy and execution of ARK’s venture capital efforts. Charles joined ARK in 2023. Prior to ARK, Charles’s background is as a deep tech entrepreneur with a focus on AI for social benefit, primarily in healthcare. He has been a cofounding executive at several companies including Freenome, a Bay Area-based company of ~500 people working on saving lives through earlier cancer detection. Freenome currently is completing one of the world’s largest ever clinical registrational studies in ~42,000 subjects, having raised $1.1B from leading investors including Roche, Novartis, Fidelity, Janus Henderson, and VCs including a16z, GV, and DCVC. Charles also cofounded other tech-bio companies including (as Chairperson) Relation Therapeutics Inc., also backed by DCVC and other leading VCs, with whom Relation completed a $25M Seed in 2022; and biotech companies Agalimmune (acquired by Nasdaq-listed biotech), Centauri Therapeutics, backed by Novo and Boerhinger Ingelheim, which he originally cofounded with the Nobel Laureate inventor of PCR. Charles also co-founded a non-invasive prenatal testing company that brought the first CE-marked NIPT test using next-generation sequencing to market. He has served as an advisor to OSE, Oxford University’s ~$1B spin-out fund, and runs a venture-creation family office. Charles holds four degree-level qualifications, having graduated with degrees in Psychology (BSc., University College London, 2001), in Medicine (University of Dundee, 2002), MRCS ((Ed), 2006), and Masters (MSc., University of Oxford, 2014).