BGV closes fourth fund on €140m

The fund was announced in March 2020 with a target of €100m and held a first close on €105m in June 2020. The fund's initial hard-cap was set at €125m, but Edward van Wezel, BGV's managing partner told Unquote: "We had a number of distinguished investors that we wanted to collaborate with and make sure we could accommodate and, in the end, all our LPs shared the same opinion."

The fund's predecessor, BGV III closed on €82m in November 2017, surpassing its €75m target.

Following this fundraise, the firm expects to expand the team with one or two hires. With regard to the effects of the coronavirus on the firm's dealflow, van Wezel said: "We would usually be on the way to the JPM conference in San Francisco by now, but it has been cancelled, of course. There are differences and we need to deal with it in another way, but there has been lots of spontaneous dealflow and we participate in virtual conferences and on a number of panels."

BGV also operates as a joint venture with Netherlands-based Forbion Capital Partners. The GP is based in Naarden, the Netherlands and its funds are domiciled in the Netherlands.

Loyens & Loeff provided legal advice.

Investors
LPs in the fund include Eli Lilly and Company and Novo Holdings, led by its venture arm, Novo Ventures, in addition to other corporate and institutional investors including Bristol Myers Squibb, Schroder Adveq, Industriens Pension, KfW Capital and the European Investment Fund, with the support of the European Commission's Investment Plan for Europe and the Netherlands national promotional institution Invest-NL.

In total, the fund has more than 10 investors from Europe, North America and Asia. BGV IV had a minimum commitment size of €1m, and, while van Wezel said no LP held more than a majority stake in the fund, there was no strict maximum commitment.

All existing LPs in BGV funds reinvested, except for Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC. Other previous investors include MAN Pension Trust.

Investment
The vehicle will continue the firm's previous investment strategy, taking stakes in biotechnology therapeutics companies in early-stage, seed and series-A funding rounds. It will invest up to €20m in portfolio companies across Europe. "We also invest outside of Europe opportunistically, but we're not actively looking for dealflow outside of Europe," said van Wezel.

"With the extra capital in this fund we will be able to support companies for a bit longer, but we still expect to make 12-15 investments," said van Wezel, who anticipates a holding period of three to seven years for the fund's investments.

Since the fund's first close, it has made four investments. Of the firm's pipeline, van Wezel said: "It's looking really good. Dealflow has been quite strong and we are exploring two or three opportunities particularly. We expect at least one to close before the end of Q1."

People
BioGeneration Ventures – Edward van Wezel (managing partner).

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