Gilde Healthcare hits EUR 600m target for Venture&Growth VI

“It’s a very selective market but despite the situation we’ve been able to increase the size of the fund by 50%,” he said, adding that the upsize is related to a steady base of “loyal” LPs and that the fund has hit its target.

Its predecessor, Gilde Healthcare V, closed in March 2020 on EUR 416m and is now fully deployed, he said. The GP closed its fourth private equity fund in March last year on EUR 517m.

The fund is registered as an Article 9 fund and has an impact strategy backed by a newly established Impact Council, but is not being portrayed as an impact fund, he said.

Investors

Gilde has added Irish pharmaceutical services group ICON to its LP base, which Meer said marks the corporate’s first European LP ticket, with further commitment from medtech group Philips.

The fund is also backed by banks, pension funds, insurers, fund-of-funds, sovereign wealth funds, endowments, family offices and entrepreneurs.

Investments

The fund will invest EUR 10m-EUR 60m tickets in digital health, medtech and therapeutics companies, with a focus on late-stage companies that enable better care at a lower cost.

It has not yet made an investment, with Meer describing it as a “blank pool of money”, but has a strong pipeline of potential deals and expects to conclude its first deal in Q4 2023, he said.

The deployment will be split half and half between two types of investment: growth stage, with companies that are revenue generating with products on the market and reimbursement; and venture investments in companies that are pre-market but need finance to reach an acquisition by a corporate.

“We don’t care if it’s a Series A or Series E, we want to see companies that are break-even or nearing an exit route in three to five years' time,” said Meer.

Gilde is seeing a lot of opportunities in the space as the closed IPO window means a lot of companies that had been ready for a listing are now seeking further capital, meaning it can invest at an attractive significant discount, he said.

Around a third of the capital will be deployed in the US, with the remainder in Europe. One of the fund’s main angles is that it will help companies to launch on either side of the Atlantic, with teams based in Boston and Europe.

“We’ve already been very strict on due diligence, there’s virtually no loss rate in our portfolio which is very rare for venture,” he said.

“The main difference in the current market is that we would like to support companies that reach cash break-even with our fundraising, and also we’re investing in companies that are enabling better care at a lower cost.

The specialisation is one aspect that helped the fund close in an environment when many LPs have found themselves allocated to private markets, he said. A handful of sponsors have recently launched or closed targeted healthcare funds, including EQT and Sofinnova. 

• Tweet  
• Facebook  
• LinkedIn  
• Google plus  
• Send to  

• Topics
• Venture
• Healthcare
• GPs
• Benelux
• Gilde Buy Out Partners