Sound Bioventures Fund I AB closes at €110m

According to cornerstone investor Novo Holdings, one third each of the €110m from the first closing is to be invested in drug development companies based in Scandinavia, the USA and the UK, as well as companies across the rest of Europe. Particularly, Sound Bioventures, which has offices in the US and Copenhagen, will be investing in private biotech companies and will focus on companies with assets in clinical or late pre-clinical stages, primarily within rare diseases.

The EIF investment was made possible under the European Guarantee Fund. The European Guarantee Fund (EGF) was set up by the EIB Group with contributions from Sweden and other EU Member States to support companies suffering from the COVID-19 crisis. The EGF, which has guarantees of almost €25bn, enables the EIB and the EIF to make loans, guarantees, asset-backed securities, equity and other financial instruments available to SMEs.

The fund will be professionally managed by a team of co-founders including Casper Breum, who has a background from Novo Nordisk, Lundbeck and Lundbeckfonden Ventures, Johan Kördel, Managing Director of the Sound Bioventure Fund, who brings experience from Pharmacia, Biovitrum and Lundbeckfonden Ventures, and Bibhash Mukhopadhyay, with a background in J&J, AstraZeneca and NEA.

An important goal of Sound Bioventures Fund I AB is to attract money from US investors in a second closing. The target size of the fund is €150m.