(Dow Jones) May 26, 2010 – San Francisco-based venture capital firm Burrill & Company is partnering up with Chile’s Austral Capital Partners to put together an initial $40 million to $50 million life sciences venture capital fund in Chile.

“We expect to initially have between $40 million and $50 million committed over the next few months…although the idea would be to have between $100 million and $150 million over the next several years,” Steven Burrill, the chief executive of the U.S. company, told Dow Jones Newswires.

The fund, called the Burrill Chile Fund, will be invested in the life sciences fields, mainly industrial biotechnology, bio-energy, bio-fuels, bio-processes, health care, and agricultural and food technologies, he said.

The Andean nation is one of the leading exporters of wood pulp, farmed salmon, fertilizers, and wine, as well as other agricultural goods.

Burrill and Company has already raised over $100 million in Brazil for a similar fund.

“They’ll be a sort of brother-sister fund. We’ll have a significant pool of capital in Latin America,” Burrill said. “We see ourselves as an important player across the region,” he added.

Corfo, the Chilean government’s investment promotion agency, will be a “major investor” in the fund, according to the CEO.

By Anthony Esposito