Alta Life Sciences gains weight in 2020: Altamar’s fund invests $20 million

Alta Life Sciences accelerated in the year marked by the coronavirus pandemic. The life sciences venture capital fund invested nearly $24 million (€20 million) in 2020. The vehicle, managed by Altamar, participated in a total of seven deals. The health sciences private equity fund added five companies in the healthcare sector to its portfolio in 2020, four of them Spanish and one from the United States.

Alta LS bolstered its portfolio with Inbrain Neuroelectronics, Ona Therapeutics, DeepUII, Binx, and Inbiomotion. In addition, it carried out two follow-on deals in Accure Therapeutics and Peptomyc. The group carried out the first transaction in May, leading the $9.14 million (€7.6 million) financing round of Accure Therapeutics, which was already part of its portfolio. The company specializing in research and development in the field of the Central Nervous System also received support from the Center for the Development of Industrial Technology (Cdti).  

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Alta LS has a portfolio of nine companies and plans to incorporate up to three more companies in 2021 

Alta Life Sciences completed two more deals in June. It participated in the $1.2 million (€1 million) financing round of Inbrain Neuroelectronics and the $36 million (€30 million) round of Ona Therapeutics, which was attended by Sabadell Asabys, Ysios Capital, Belgian fund FundPlus and France’s BPIFrance. “All the work came from before the pandemic and we executed several operations in the second quarter, which was the most important period,” explained one of the partners of Alta LS, Montserrat Vendrell. 

In July, the Altamar-managed vehicle led a $4.2 million (€3.5 million) financing round in DeepUII. In the last quarter of 2020, the group completed three more deals. Alta LS led a $13.2 million (€11 million) financing round of Binx, a US startup specializing in diagnosing sexually transmitted diseases. The health sciences venture capital fund also entered Inbiomotion’s capital through a transaction for an undisclosed amount. The round was announced in January, although it was executed in late 2020. “Inbiomotion was not in our plans, but it was a good opportunity,” said another Alta LS partner, Jose Mesa. 

Finally, the vehicle managed by Altamar participated in Peptomyc’s €11.4 million financing round. Vendrell assures that “no deal has fallen through because of the pandemic” and that they are “happy with the result of the 2020 work”. The group also has in its portfolio Sanifit, a Spanish company specialized in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases that raised $66.4 million (€55.2 million) in 2019, in what was the largest deal in the biotech sector in Spain. Mediktor, which closed a $3.6 million (€3 million) round in 2018, is also part of the fund’s portfolio. Alta LS has carried out all these operations through the venture capital fund Alta Life Sciences Spain I FCR, endowed with $96.3 million (€80 million) and completed in September 2019. For its part, Altamar Capital Partners is a financial services group that currently has close to $9.6 billion (€8 billion) in committed assets.  

With nine companies in its portfolio, Alta LS expects to add two to three more companies in 2021

The private equity fund specializing in health sciences will be reinforced with a European company in the first half of 2021. The Altamar-managed vehicle invests tickets of between eight and ten million euros per company. The goal for 2021 is “to do a good screening of new deals, because when you only have two or three deals left to do it is more difficult to decide on the investment,” Mesa pointed out. 

Alta LS invests in companies at all stages of development, from seed funding to commercial growth, and in all areas of life sciences such as biotechnology, medical devices, diagnostics, genomics and digital health. The partner team includes Guy Nohra, Miquel Valls and Scott Moonly, in addition to Vendrell and Mesa.

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(Featured image by Tumisu via Pixabay)

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