VC-backed Genticel lists on Euronext

Ellie Pullen
08 April 2014

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French vaccine developer Genticel, backed by several venture capital firms, has floated on the Euronext Paris and Brussels exchanges with a market cap of €119.3m.

A total of 5 million shares were offered in the IPO at a price of €7.9 apiece, comprising around 3.5 million shares allocated in a global placement and the balance allocated to the open-price offer (OPO).

The global placement made up 70.3% of the total offering and raised €27.9m, while the OPO made up the balance, raising €11.8m. Overall, the company raised around €39.7m in the offering and will take home around €34.5m, prior to any exercise of the overallotment option.

Of the global OPO, 1 million shares were allocated to the OPO in France – representing around €8m and 20.2% of the total offering – while 476,800 were allocated to the Belgian OPO, making up the balance of €3.8m and 9.5% of the offering overall.

Originally planning on raising €30m, the amount was raised to €34.5m as the offering was oversubscribed by 1.8x with demand reaching €55m, according to the company.

Conditional dealings commenced on 4 April on the two exchanges. Genticel's stock will be admitted to the main market of the Paris and Brussels exchanges tomorrow (9 April) under the ticker "GTCL".

KBC Securities and Oddo & Cie have been appointed as joint bookrunners for the flotation, while eumedix and Odicéo are advising the company.

Previous funding
Most recently, Genticel raised €18.2m in its series-C funding round. The round was led by Wellington Partners, which supplied €4m, with the remaining €14.2m provided by existing shareholders including Edmond de Rothschild Investment Partners (EdRip), Idinvest, CDC Enterprises' InnoBio fund, Institut Régional de Développement Industriel (IRDI) and Amundi Private Equity Funds.

In 2010, Idinvest (then AGF Private Equity) led a €13.1m series-B funding round for Genticel with first-time investors Amundi, IRDI and Innobio. EdRip also invested more capital in this round, having led a €2.8m series-A funding round for Genticel in 2008.

The series-A funding round saw previous investors Fonds d'Amorçage Midi-Pyrénées (FAM) – under Icso Private Equity management – BrevImmo, LBP, Beaufagne, Whitehall and Genticel's management team inject new capital into the vaccine developer.

Prior to this, Genticel received €6m of seed capital in 2006.

Company
Founded in 2001 as a spinout from the Institut Pasteur, Genticel operated under the name BT Pharma until 2010. It focuses on therapeutic vaccines and has previously sought funding to finance its ProCervix project, a vaccine against high-risk types of human papillomavirus (HPV) 16 and 18.

These two high-risk strains of HPV carry the chance of infected women developing cervical cancer and account for 70% of all cervical cancer cases.

The company employs 30 staff and its headquarters and laboratories are based in Toulouse. Genticel is not yet generating turnover; its net debt stood at €2.1m as of December 2013.

People
Benedikt Timmerman is the founder and CEO of Genticel.