Novalis Biotech closes second fund on €25m

The GP told Unquote in November 2020 that it aimed to expand its participation in series-A rounds and target more companies abroad with the new fund. The vehicle held a first close on €8m that month.

The fund aims to provide a return of at least 3x to investors over six years, the GP said at the time of the first close. The lifespan of the fund is 7-10 years.

Investors
LPs in the second fund include institutional investors such as Participatie Maatschappij Vlaanderen (PMV), as well as family offices and high-net-worth individuals.

Investors at the time of the first close were mainly high-net-worth individuals and family offices, as previously reported. The firm was expecting maximum commitments of €5m per investor back in November. The investor base was at the time more skewed towards Belgium, with the legal structure of the vehicle also being Belgian.

With a potential third fund, Novalis is likely to set up a Luxembourg structure and have a managing partner in London to tap more international investors, Novalis Biotech co-founder and managing director Jan Van den Berghe said following the first close.

Investments
The fund will invest in approximately 20 companies. Half of these will be incubation-stage investments with tickets of €250,000-750,000, while the other half will be larger investments of €1-2m over the life of the company.

Van den Berghe told Unquote that the GP is looking to back companies that are innovating "enabling technologies" in healthcare. Examples of these technologies are genomics, bioinformatics, drug research or manufacturing tools, diagnostics, and personalised medicine, he said.

The fund has already invested in four companies: Grapheal, a French startup developing wearable biosensors enabling continuous monitoring and diagnosis; RheaVita, a Belgian company developing continuous freeze-drying technology for biopharma products; H42, an incubation-stage startup in the area of epigenetics; and a fourth investment in a US-based company focused on AI and neurodegenerative diseases that will be announced shortly, Van den Berghe said.

People
Novalis Biotech Incubation – Wim Van Criekinge, Jan Van den Berghe (co-founders and managing directors).

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