Gilde Healthcare Partners, a European venture capital firm, has closed Gilde Healthcare II, its second fund, on ā¬150 million ($213 million). It is one of the largest venture funds dedicated to investing in European healthcare opportunities.
The fund closed ahead of its ā¬125 million target with a mixture of re-commitments from investors in the first fund and a small select group of newcomers.
Pieter van der Meer, a partner, told PEO: āWe will deliver to investors in the first fund an attractive return. We are expecting to triple their original investment when the fund is fully exited.ā
To date the firm has sold five out of 12 investments in the first fund. Glycast, a Swiss biotech business sold to Roche, generated an IRR of 312 percent and returned seven times the original investment, Gildeās best return yet.
The firm has also floated Dutch business AMT on Euronext, the Amsterdam exchange, less than a year after it made the investment from its just closed, second fund.
Van der Meer said: āIt is a good example of our people focused approach. We back the entrepreneurs not the technology or science. We had been watching AMT for a while. A senior manager joined from Amgen and that was our cue. He attracted other talented managers.ā Gilde invested in October last year and listed the business on Euronext in June making three times its investment.
The fund will continue to invest in innovative companies developing therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices and enabling technologies, at all stages of a company's development from seed stage to pre-IPO rounds.
Investment size will range from ā¬1 million up to ā¬15 million per investment after all private rounds of financing. It is planned to make more than 15 venture investments from the fund.