Kurma Partners has rounded up cash to help 15 companies clear the final hurdles in the race to market. Armed with an initial 160 million euros ($174 million), the Paris-based VC shop will primarily support unlisted European companies as they seek to transform from R&D- to commercial-stage organizations.
Since closing its first fund in 2009, Kurma has been known for getting involved early in the development of biotechs. Kurma, which has founded 24 companies, used its second biofund to participate in the series A rounds of startups such as ImCheck Therapeutics and Minoryx Therapeutics, European biotechs that have attracted the attention of industry leaders including Pfizer and Roche.
The third biofund significantly grew Kurma’s financial muscle, with the 160 million euro final close easily exceeding the combined size of its two prior funds, and allowed the VC shop to branch out a little into later-stage rounds such as AM-Pharma’s series C.
Even so, biotech creation remained the focus. The new Growth Opportunities fund, the first of its kind at Kurma, formalizes and extends the interest in later-stage investments, positioning the investor to continue helping biotechs as they round the final corner in the race to market.
“The number of European biotech and healthtech companies with products in the final stages of development has been surging in recent years. The launch of the Growth activity will allow us to support the maturity of the European market and to be up to the challenges of companies at the time of their industrial and commercial scale up,” Kurma managing partners Rémi Droller and Vanessa Malier said in a statement.
The European Investment Fund, Bpifrance, the Belgian Growth Fund managed by PMV and BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity, SFPI, BNP Paribas Fortis, Groupe Pasteur Mutualité and Eurazeo have contributed to the fund. Kurma is now working to bring in more money with the goal of closing the fund at 250 million euros.
Kurma’s creation of a growth fund echoes the activities of other investors that have traditionally focused on early-stage opportunities. Over the past five years, Medicxi has closed a $300 million late-stage fund, Sofinnova Partners has raised a 445 million euro crossover fund and, in the U.S., Atlas Venture has pulled in $550 million across its two Opportunity Funds.
Sofinnova and Kurma both benefited from France’s “Tibi” designation, which makes their funds eligible for the 6 billion euro institutional investors have mobilized to support the growth of later-stage companies.