News

Belgian Growth Fund has made a capital commitment of up to 20 million Euro in Kurma Growth Opportunities Fund, a late-stage venture and growth capital fund focused on equity investments in scale-up companies in the area of life sciences. The fund is managed by Kurma Partners, one of the leading players in the life sciences field in Western Europe. With close to 700 million Euro of assets under management and more than 55 investments since its inception in 2009, this fund manager has developed a strong expertise in financing healthcare innovations, from pre-seed to growth stage.

Kurma Partners has proven in recent years to play an active role in the Belgian biotech and medtech ecosystem with stakes in Flamingo Therapeutics, Vico, Mynorix and Sunrise, among others. These are companies with their headquarters and/or important operational activities in Belgium. Over the years, the company has also developed an extensive network in our country with universities and research institutes such as VIB, KU Leuven, UGent and UCL, and with (co-)investors including FPIM-SFPI, PMV, SRIW, Fund+, GIMV, Droia Ventures and Vives Fund.

Expansion potential

Kurma Growth Opportunities Fund, the newest fund with a target size of 250 million Euro, will focus on building a portfolio of already well-developed scale-up companies with a high expansion potential through private and public late-stage venture/growth capital rounds. Specifically, the target companies will already be past the clinical proof-of-concept phase for therapeutics and past the R&D phase for diagnostics and medical technology. With this, the fund aims to play a leading role in the maturation of the European life sciences sector, by continuing to financially support companies in the commercial phase so that they do not have to immediately seek non-European - often US-based - growth financing. The fund is financed by a diverse group of international investors, including private equity houses, government funds, pension funds, family offices and Kurma Partners itself as the fund manager.

Major place

Vanessa Malier and Rémi Droller both Managing Partners at Kurma declare : ”Belgium has always been one of the major place for Biotech, Diagnostic and Digital Health. This new collaboration with BGF allows Kurma to strengthen its links with our Belgian long term partners and create a momentum to scale up our industry with the objective to launch European global leaders.”

Investment rhythm

Mireille Kielemoes and Koen Heindryckx of Belgian Growth Fund add: "We are looking forward to working with Rémi Droller, Vanessa Malier, Jean-François Rivassou, Daniel Parera and their collaborators. With this eighth investment, BGF is on track in terms of investment rhythm. Investment rounds are getting larger and larger and it is important for our scale-ups to be able to respond quickly to the opportunities that present themselves. We are pleased to see that BGF can contribute to this."

Eithth participation

With this new transaction, Belgian Growth Fund realizes its eighth participation since its launch in mid-2019. Previous holdings in the BGF portfolio include Smartfin Capital II, Fortino Capital II Growth, Sofindev V, Gilde Healthcare V, Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund I, Andera Expansion III and a Pan-European midcap buyout fund whose name will be announced after its final closing in the first half of 2022.