Bionova Capital has started a new venture capital company, Biovance Capital Partners.
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 U.K., and one in Spain.
The new, independent company is fully owned by its team. The announcement was made at 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 a commitment of €35 million has been secured from EIF, BPF and the European Commission under the programs 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 U.S. 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 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 the 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.”