January 9, 2015
By Riley McDermid, BioSpace.com Breaking News Sr. Editor
Healthcare and biotech venture capitalists Fountain Healthcare Partners will be attempting to give a boost to a sluggish European economy, on Friday saying that its second fund, Fountain Healthcare Partners Fund, has reaped $100.76 million of committed capital that it will now invest primarily in Europe.
The company is also soliciting more investors to finish off the round, which it has put a hard cap on of $148.17 million.
The fund has a presence in Dublin and New York City but said that this round will put over 75 percent of its money into investing in specialty pharmaceuticals, biotechnology, medical devices and diagnostics companies in Europe.
“Fountain’s investment strategy focuses on building a balanced portfolio of companies with complementary risk and return profiles within the life science sector,” said Manus Rogan, co-founder and managing partner at Fountain, in a statement.
“This strategy has resulted in both strong absolute and relative returns from our first fund. The performance of our first fund is reflected in both the level and quality of new and existing investor participation in Fund II,” he said. “With €85 million raised we are also pleased to have exceeded our initial close target of €75 million against a widely accepted challenging fundraising backdrop in the venture capital sector.”
The new Fund II will make between 10 to 15 investments and has already completed two deals, one of which is taking a stake in transdermal drug delivery company Chrono Therapeutics. The other is an investment in Innocoll, a Phase III clinical stage specialty pharma company developing products for the treatment of post-operative pain, diabetic foot infections and surgical adhesions.
The new closing brings the total assets under management for Fountain to $187.29 million. Fountain said Friday that 90 percent of the initial $100.76 million came from domestic and international institutional investors, which were ”predominantly fund of funds, sovereign funds, pension funds and a strategic corporate investor.”
As Ireland’s largest dedicated life science venture capital fund, Fountain execs said Friday that they felt a duty to roll that money back into the life sciences sector currently feeling the weight of a sluggish European economy.
“The life science sector has been one of the best performing sectors in the past two years with returns surpassing the major global indices and a record number of IPOs and public offerings,” said Aidan King, co-founder and managing partner. “Strong demand for life science investments is a reflection of investor’s belief in the underlying growth dynamics of the sector and the investment return opportunities presented by innovative life science companies.”
