Biovance Capital Partners is set to manage a new fund up to € 60 million supported by the European Investment Fund (EIF) to invest in early-stage biotech companies across Europe.
Biovance Capital will be the first healthcare-specialized fund in Portugal marking a milestone for the health innovation sector.
Lisbon, Portugal – 10 July 2023 – Bionova Capital Bionova Capital announced today that its team has started a new venture capital company named Biovance Capital Partners, a new independent company fully owned by its team. This announcement was made today in a public session organized by the Portuguese Minister of Economy and Maritime Affairs, the European Investment Fund (EIF), the European Commission, and the national promotional bank Banco Português de Fomento (BPF). Biovance Capital Partners will seek regulatory approval from the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM) to manage Biovance Capital Fund I, a new venture capital fund to be established in Portugal. The fund’s maximum size is € 60 million and has already secured a commitment of € 35 million from EIF, BPF and the European Commission under the programmes PORTUGAL TECH and InvestEU. Additional commitments include Caixa Capital (the venture capital arm of Caixa Geral de Depósitos, Portugal’s largest bank), and institutional investors in the USA and Portugal. The fund plans to invest in early-stage biotech companies across Europe, with a special focus in Southern Europe, in Seed and Series A rounds with tickets ranging from € 1.5 to 6 million. The fund will invest in companies developing novel transformational therapies for unmet medical needs across all disease areas and drug modalities.
The fund will be managed by a healthcare-specialized team of PhDs and an MD all trained at leading institutions including the Harvard Medical School, MIT, and Imperial College, and with exceptional track records in the pharmaceutical and venture capital industries.
“After creating Bionova Capital in 2015, investing in seven innovative healthcare companies, securing a profitable exit, and a second exit nearing completion, we are now establishing this new fund to tap into the wealth of breakthrough medical therapies across Europe that still cannot find adequate specialized venture capital. This new strategy will allow the creation of many more biotech companies in Portugal and rest of Europe”, said Peter Villax, Chairman at Bionova Capital and Partner at Biovance Capital.
“As internationally-trained scientists, we have witnessed the exceptional quality of biomedical research being produced in Europe, where large public investments have generated a wealth of technologies ready to be spun-out into new ventures”, said Ricardo Perdigão Henriques, CEO at Bionova Capital and Managing Partner at Biovance Capital. “This new fund will offer a unique opportunity for our investors to capture value from this highly profitable and largely untapped market opportunity and deliver capital and expertise to help entrepreneurs turn discoveries into new drugs for patients in need”.
About Bionova Capital
Bionova Capital is a healthcare-focused investor in early-stage life science companies across Europe. Founded in 2015, Bionova Capital actively manages a portfolio of five companies, two in Portugal, two in the UK, and one in Spain.
More information:
Ricardo Perdigão Henriques, PhD - CEO
About Biovance Capital Partners
Biovance Capital Partners is a new venture capital company fully owned by its team based in Lisbon, Portugal. This company will seek regulatory approval from the Portuguese Securities Market Commission (CMVM) to manage Biovance Capital Fund I, a new fund up to € 60 million supported by the European Investment Fund (EIF) to invest in early-stage biotech companies across Europe, with a special focus in Southern Europe.
More information:
Ricardo Perdigão Henriques, PhD - Managing Partner
www.biovancecapital.com
About PORTUGAL TECH
Signed in November 2018, PORTUGAL TECH is a € 100 million investment programme focused on developing the venture capital ecosystem in Portugal. This capital has been fully allocated to six Portuguese funds, with a total leveraged value of more than € 400 million. So far, the funds selected by PORTUGAL TECH have already invested more than € 100 million in 55 startups, among which the unicorns Sword Health, Anchorage and Remote stand out.
About InvestEU
The InvestEU programme provides the European Union with crucial long-term funding by leveraging substantial private and public funds in support of a sustainable recovery. It also helps mobilise private investments for the EU’s policy priorities, such as the European Green Deal and the digital transition. The InvestEU programme brings together under one roof the multitude of EU financial instruments currently available to support investment in the EU, making funding for investment projects in Europe simpler, more efficient and more flexible. The programme consists of three components: the InvestEU Fund, the InvestEU Advisory Hub and the InvestEU Portal. The InvestEU Fund is implemented through financial partners that will invest in projects using the EU budget guarantee of €26.2 billion. The entire budget guarantee will back the investment projects of the implementing partners, increase their risk-bearing capacity and thus mobilise at least €372 billion in additional investment.
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