Jerel Davis, Ph.D., is a Managing Director of Versant Ventures based in Vancouver, Canada. Since joining Versant in 2011, he has been central to launching and backing a number of Versant’s portfolio companies including BlueRock (sale), Crispr (public 2016), Inception 4 (sale), Inception 5 (sale), Quanticel (sale), Akero (2019 IPO), Northern (sale), Repare (2020 IPO), Chinook (2020 RM, sale), Graphite Bio (2021 IPO), Turnstone (2023 IPO), Ventus, Rayze (2023 IPO), Tentarix, Kolm, Firefly, Fable and Nested. His investment strategy has spanned company creation, syndicated deals, and early pharma transactions. He was also instrumental in establishing Versant’s presence in Canada. Jerel was promoted to Managing Director at Versant in December 2015.​

Prior to joining Versant, Jerel was an Associate Principal at McKinsey and Company where he advised healthcare corporations in pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical device and molecular diagnostics. He has worked in a number of healthcare markets globally including the U.S., Canada, Europe, China, Russia and India. Jerel was a post-doctoral fellow at Stanford University, where he also completed his Ph.D., and trained at Amgen as a researcher.