Forbion Capital Partners adds new investors

Fund syndication

Forbion Capital Partners said it completed the syndication of part of Coller Capital’s position in the Forbion Capital Fund I (Forbion I).

Coller, the largest investor in Forbion I, syndicated an undisclosed part of its position to seven new limited partners, in accordance with its intentions, announced in January 2007, when it underwrote a 75 per cent holding in Forbion I. This pre-agreed syndication process was aimed at significantly diversifying the investor base of Forbion Capital Partners, which spun out of the Dutch bank ABN AMRO in December 2006.

The new private equity investors are HarbourVest; Partners Group; Hamilton Lane; Pomona Capital; Van Herk Investments; Von Braun & Schreiber Private Equity Partners and Indofin Group. The offering was 3.5 times oversubscribed.

Bart Bergstein, Managing Partner at Forbion, said. “The entry of this investor group, not only validates the quality of our team and the prospects of the current portfolio, it also creates a strong investor base for future funds.”

Forbion is a €200 million fund dedicated to life sciences. It assumed investments of €90 million in 26 companies upon its formation in December 2006, leaving room for new and follow-on investments. It invests in drug development and medical technologies companies, in Europe and the US.

It is anticipated that Forbion will make initial investments from €3 million to €7 million, with the potential for follow-on investments. In addition to providing finance the Forbion team works closely with its companies to accelerate development.

The Forbion Capital Partners management team is the rebranded ABN AMRO Capital Life Sciences team, which made more than 30 investments across Europe and the US over the past seven years.  Members of the team have served on the boards of nearly all the portfolio companies. Recent deals include leading the second-round €40 million fundraising of Santaris Pharma, A/S, the €22 million first-round investment in Amsterdam Molecular Therapeutics and the €13 million second-round funding of PanGenetics BV.