The European Investment Fund (EIF) has published a call for expressions of interest from venture capital funds who want to cooperate with the Venture Centre of Excellence (VCoE), a partnership created by EIF and EIT Health with the goal of facilitating financing for European healthcare start-ups.
The call targets venture capital funds (VCs) that are interested in acting as financial intermediaries for investments in healthcare innovations. The details of the call are available on the EIF website.
The VCoE is a pan-European, open-innovation programme co-designed by EIT Health and the European Investment Fund (EIF) with the aim of catalysing €2 billion in life science funding and bringing together an exclusive member community of healthcare investors: VCs, corporations, insurers, technology transfer offices (TTOs) and others wishing to co-invest in European life science start-ups. The European Commission recently expressed its strong support for the VCoE with a €150 million anchor investment.
Under their agreement to establish the VCoE, EIT Health is responsible for managing the ongoing accession of corporates, TTOs, health insurers and others, while EIF leads the VC selection process. EIF is using this call for Expressions of Interest to allow eligible VCs to apply to join the VCoE as members.
“This is a great moment for the VCoE, bringing together all of the work that has been done over the past years to build this programme,” said Jean-Marc Bourez, EIT Health France Managing Director and Head of the VCoE.
“The VCoE’s EIF-managed VC selection process is a cornerstone in the constitution of the VCoE’s exclusive member community, alongside the corporate and other potential members whose accession to the VCoE EIT Health is currently managing. I sincerely thank all of our EIF colleagues who have made it possible to reach this point in collaboration with EIT Health teams.”
Isaac Middelmann of EIT Health, the VCoE Programme Manager, added: “EIT Health is excited to welcome the first VCs selected by EIF as part of this process. We look forward to organising the first VCoE exclusive members’ meeting during the first half of 2021 and to facilitating the development of this trust-based community.”
This article was first published on 13 January by EIT Health.
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