CapMan raises €54m Life Science fund

CapMan has closed its fourth life science fund at €54 million.

A total of eight institutional investors have committed to CapMan Life Science IV, two of whom were first time investors in CapMan funds.

CapMan has invested €10 million of its own capital in the fund, which invests in medical technology and service companies, mainly in the Nordic countries.

Jan Lundahl, senior partner and head of CapMan Life Science, said about 80 percent of investment opportunities would be in the Nordic region, with a “significant number of potential deals” coming from elsewhere in Europe. In the next few years, the fund will make investments in six to eight more companies, he added.

CapMan Life Science IV has already invested in Neoventa Medical, a foetal monitoring company; ProstaLund a prostate treatment company; and QuickCool, a company that attempts to prevent brain damage. CapMan’s Life Science team has invested in 18 companies and exited from nine of them.

Venture capital firms continue to show a healthy appetite for the life sciences sector. Last month figures from the trade body NVCA revealed that the volume of deals just for US companies making medical devices reached a record $1.08 billion during the first quarter of this year, a 60 percent increase from the fourth quarter of 2006. The life science sector as a whole received a record 36 percent of all venture capital investment for the first quarter, another all-time high.