The firm was originally founded in 1996 as BioAsia Investments (due to its former association with Asian investors) by Frank Kung and Edgar G. Engleman.

The biotech firms that Vivo invests in tend to already have new treatments in clinical trials with human experimental data and case studies available.

[2][3][4][6][7][9][10] Vivo has funded Sinovac Biotech, a Chinese biopharmaceutical company that developed the COVID-19 vaccine, CoronaVac.

[6][9][11][12][13] Other notable companies it has invested in include WuXi AppTec,[6] Amyris,[14] Angiotech Pharmaceuticals[15] and Precision BioSciences.

[16] Vivo headquartered in Palo Alto, California with additional offices in Beijing, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Taipei.