Ysios Capital, a San Sebastian and Barcelona, Spain-based venture capital firm specialized in the biotechnology sector, closed its third fund, Ysios BioFund 3 (YBF 3), at €216m ($260m).
YBF 3 – Ysios’ largest fund to date – provides biotech ventures with the resources to develop novel and disruptive therapies for indications with high-unmet medical need. The fund will invest broadly across multiple therapeutic areas and modalities, targeting seed/early stage and development-stage companies at the forefront of the future of medicine.
The total investment size per company will typically be of up to €20m.
Led by Joël Jean-Mairet, Managing Partner, and Karen Wagner, Managing Partner, Ysios takes lead positions and works closely with entrepreneurial management teams. Emphasis will be placed on building sustainable companies with business models offering dual paths to liquidity. As with previous funds, about 80% of the YBF 3 investments will target Europe, with a special focus on Spain, while the remainder of the fund will target opportunities in North America.
More than 60% of the portfolio has already been constructed, with eight investments made in the last 12 months by blue-chip European and US investors. YBF 3 has participated in the following fund raisings, mostly taking a lead or co-lead role:
- Ona Therapeutics (Oncology, Spain) – €30M Series A
- SpliceBio (Gene therapy, Spain) – Seed/company build-up
- VarmX (Blood clotting, The Netherlands) – €32M Series B
- Lava Therapeutics (Oncology, The Netherlands) – €70M Series C/IPO NASDAQ: LVTX $103M
- SparingVision (Gene therapy, France) – €44.5M Series A2 round
- Synendos (Neuropsychiatry, Switzerland) – CHF 24M Series A
- Adcendo (Oncology, Denmark) – €51M Series A
- Cytoki (Inflammation, Denmark) – €38M Series A
Since its inception, Ysios has invested in 33 companies – including several of Spain’s biotech success stories – and has brought 14 innovative medical products to market. Currently, over 40 medical products across the portfolio are at the clinical stage for serious diseases and over €1bn has been invested in R&D.
Key liquidity events over the last years include the sale of Tigenix (formerly Cellerix) to Takeda (€450M), the purchase of STAT-Diagnostica by Qiagen (up to €172M), the sale of Endosense to St. Jude Medical ($331M), the investment and purchase option of Pfizer into Vivet (up to €540M), the sale of Biovex to Amgen (up to $1bn), the sale of Prexton to Lundbeck (€100M) and three listings on NASDAQ including Galecto (GLTO), Kala Pharmaceuticals (KALA) and Lava Therapeutics (LVTX).
FinSMEs
28/05/2021