LIFE science startups hoping for a big break can now look to a new Singapore-based cash cow for funding.European asset manager Tikehau Capital and Sprim Ventures, the venture arm of global healthcare consultancy Sprim, have teamed up to launch a venture capital (VC) fund for early-stage investments.The committed capital for the fund, dubbed TKS1, is US$50 million as at its initial closing. About 70 per cent came from the two firms, and the rest from third-party investors. Tikehau and Sprim are aiming for two more closings, which would bring TKS1 to as much as US$75 million by the second-half of this year.<\/p>\n
Bruno de Pampelonne, chairman of Tikehau Investment Management, told The Business Times that \u201cthe strategy of the fund is early-stage\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cValuations are much more attractive at a very early stage. As we can validate the scientific principles, and the fact that there is a market for these products, that makes for us a very strong competitive advantage.\u201d<\/p>\n
TKS1 has invested around US$30 million so far, across seven companies. They are tackling issues such as managing clinical trials by mobile app, delivering therapeutics across the blood-brain barrier, and leveraging artificial intelligence to analyse medical research.<\/p>\n
Sprim co-founder Michael Shleifer told BT that the TKS1 fund is \u201cmore into B2B (business-to-business), enterprise\u201d than the direct consumer market. \u201cWe have a little bit of biotech, but we don\u2019t want to over-commit to it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
But Dr Shleifer was firm that \u201chardware is really kind of a nope\u201d for the fund, with Mr de Pampelonne citing the \u201chuge capex\u201d needed for the devices segment as the key turn-off.<\/p>\n
Depending on how TKS1 performs and when the piggy bank empties, Mr de Pampelonne said that subsequent funds could be launched in about one-and-a-half to three years\u2019 time. \u201cWe have a rule where we don\u2019t launch a second fund if the first one is not at least 75 per cent invested,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, at the second phase of the fund, when the company will reach a stage of maturity, then we are going to look for co-investors. But for the time being, we\u2019re looking more for both academic partners and startups.\u201d<\/p>\n
For instance, one company in the TKS1 portfolio is Travecta Therapeutics \u2013 a drug discovery company that taps the work of Duke-NUS Medical School professor David Silver.<\/p>\n
When asked about public venture platforms already in existence \u2013 such as the Singapore Economic Development Board\u2019s EDBI unit, or the Agency for Science, Technology and Research\u2019s ETPL \u2013 Mr de Pampelonne said: \u201cWe clearly operate in full partnership with those guys. If we manage to take the things out of academia into this partnership \u2013 combined partnership, public-private sector \u2013 it could be extremely powerful for Singapore.\u201d<\/p>\n
He also noted that state investment firm Temasek Holdings is already a shareholder in Tikehau, which controls the manager of Singapore-listed real estate investment trust IREIT Global. Temasek was part of a round of investors that pumped 510 million euros (S$827 million) into Tikehau in July 2016.<\/p>\n
What about competition among funds in the private market?<\/p>\n
Mr de Pampelonne said: \u201cThe space is large enough for all of us and it\u2019s always clear that we have worked with partners, so that\u2019s fine.\u201d<\/p>\n
TKS1 is differentiated by the blend of Tikehau\u2019s financial know-how and Sprim\u2019s scientific chops, he argued. \u201cSo it\u2019s very different from a classical VC fund, where often you\u2019re going to have a couple of finance guys, maybe one or two doctors, and here we go.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LIFE science startups hoping for a big break can now look to a new Singapore-based cash cow for funding.European asset manager Tikehau Capital and Sprim Ventures, the venture arm of global healthcare consultancy Sprim, have teamed up to launch a … Read More <\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":10889,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":""},"categories":[301],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sprim.com\/pt-br\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}