Eir Ventures, a Nordic Life Science Venture Capital manager, has closed Eir Ventures I at €122.3m (US$137.8m) . The fund is the firm’s first dedicated life sciences venture capital fund. It was launched in 2020 with support from a syndicate comprising the European Investment Fund (EIF), Novo Holdings, Saminvest, Vækstfonden, as well as a group of Nordic universities, family offices and the firm’s founding partners. Since then it has attracted new investors including Sustainable Development Umbrella Fund (SDUF) and additional family offices.
The fund invests in life science companies with products and technologies addressing significant unmet medical needs. Eir Ventures is dedicated to seizing high return potential opportunities in the Nordics, targeting innovations originating from the leading universities and incubators in the region with which it has established close collaborations. The Nordic region is home to the two highest ranked medical academic institutions in the European Union, the Karolinska Institute in Sweden and the Copenhagen University in Denmark.
Since its launch, Eir Ventures has participated in nine investments and Nordic Universities played a key role in the investment opportunities. It took part in the seed financing of Pretzel Therapeutics, a company developing treatments to address the genetic roots of mitochondrial dysfunction (Karolinska Institutet and Gothenburg University); led the financing in ArgusEye, developing new first-in-class sensor technologies for biological production (Linköping University); ISD Immunotech, an innovative biotech start-up developing first-in-class therapeutics for treatment of severe systemic lupus erythematosus (Aarhus University); One-carbon Tx, a biotech company developing novel anticancer treatments (Karolinska Institutet); Sacra Therapeutics, a company developing pioneering therapies based on RNA epigenetics (Lund University); Sortina Pharma, developing new therapies for treatment of aggressive cancers such as triple negative breast cancer (Gothenburg University), and emerging biotech company Synklino, which is developing breakthrough treatment to eliminate cytomegalovirus (CMV) infections in the transplant setting (Copenhagen University).
Other financings in which the fund has taken part, include one of the largest private financing rounds in a Scandinavian biotech, IO Biotech, which this year raised US$115.1m on Nasdaq. Eir Ventures also co-led the US$64m crossover round of Galecto in 2020. Galecto went on to raise US$85m on Nasdaq.
The fund expects to announce several further investments in the coming months.
Founding partner Stephan Christgau, said: “There is an abundance of compelling investment opportunities in the Nordic region, demonstrated by the successes of our portfolio companies”
Eir Venture’s strategy is to back entrepreneurs in the Nordics developing innovative science with the ability to attract capital and US interest.
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