Kurma Partners earned €160 million in the first closing of its Growth Opportunities fund, and Atlas Venture raked in its largest round of funding yet to invest in new biotech firms.
Paris-based Kurma Partners, a financial planning firm that specializes in healthcare and scientific investing, announced that it earned €160 million (USD $174,096) in the first closing of its Growth Opportunities fund. This milestone funding will be used to help Kurma finance health and biotech companies from creation to advanced development.
The announcement is a game-changer for the European biotech industry, as the investments will target mainly unlisted European companies and focus on meeting strong medical needs.
“The number of European biotech and health tech companies with products in the final stages of development has been surging in recent years. The launch of the Growth activity will allow us to support the maturity of the European market and to be up to the challenges of companies at the time of their industrial and commercial scale-up,” said Rémi Droller and Vanessa Malier, managing partners at Kurma.
Eurazeo, the anchor investor for the Growth Opportunities fund, increased its stake in Kurma Partners when it contributed to the fund. The fund included the support of several other influential organizations, such as the European Investment Fund, the Belgian Growth Fund, SFPI, BNP Paribas Fortis and Groupe Pasteur Mutualité.
The new fund, which is aiming for €250 million, also gained the prestigious Tibi label. The Tibi label makes the fund eligible for the €6 billion set aside by French investors to grow local companies and turn them into global players. The fund also includes money from Bpifrance, an organization that invests in private equity managed on behalf of the French government as part of France’s 2030 plan for development.
Kurma Partners said it is hoping to invest in approximately 15 companies going from R&D into a commercial phase. Kurma said it will accomplish this goal with expertise from its recently updated leadership. This includes new fund partners Jean-François Rivassou and Daniel Parera and new senior advisors Tony Rosenberg, who was previously the corporate head of M&A and licensing at Novartis, and Philippe Gallone, managing director of Moelis & Company.
Kurma isn’t the only fund with recent exciting financial news. Atlas Venture held its thirteenth fundraising activity and raked in $450 million - its largest round of funding yet - to invest in new biotech firms. Atlas has a strong history of success with its previous fundraising efforts, which include investments in Chroma Medicine and Ikena Oncology.
Last week, Foresite Labs, an incubator for data science-based life sciences companies, also announced a funding round. Foresite closed on an oversubscribed fund worth $173 million to support blockchain and data science initiatives in genomics.
A few weeks ago, EyeBio pulled in $65 million from a Series A funding round to develop novel therapies for eye diseases. Additionally, Terray Therapeutics, a biotech startup specializing in AI drug discovery, announced $60 million in Series A financing on top of $20 million in seed funding to generate precise chemical datasets.
In short, it takes money to make money. These significant funding announcements promise a rich pipeline of products to come later this year.
“We believe the companies we’re creating can help solve many of the problems the [life sciences] industry faces, and this additional capital will help us do that,” said Vikram Bajaj, co-founder and CEO of Foresite Labs.
