Growth capital investor, BGF has announced a successful exit from Nottingham-based life sciences incubation business, BioCity.
BGF backed BioCity in January 2019 with funding facilitating BioCity’s investment into a number of seed-stage life sciences businesses. BGF has also invested alongside BioCity in deals such as its investment into North West-headquartered proteomic-data science and diagnostics company, Kinomica, in November last year.
BioCity Group has been acquired by Trinity Investment Management (Trinity IM) and Harrison Street (Harrison Street Real Estate Capital) as part of a pre-existing joint venture. The deal will see the merger of BioCity Group with Trinity IM’s science real estate arm, Knowledge Factory, to form a new company, We Are Pioneer Group.
Toby Reid, BioCity CEO, says: “BGF’s support was integral in allowing BioCity Group to expand our offering to the UK’s life science community. We Are Pioneer Group is the exciting next step that provides the opportunity to create a fully integrated European life sciences platform to rival the scale of what the US has to offer.”
BGF experienced an active quarter of exit and investment activity in Q1 2021 across the UK. A total of eight exits were completed, generating significant returns for all shareholders. BGF returned GBP107 million from the GBP45 million invested across the eight businesses. The exits generated an average MM of 2.4x and average of IRR 33 per cent.
BGF’s Jon Earl, says: “This is a successful exit for all involved with strong returns for all shareholders. It’s also a hugely positive story for the region, which pioneered the concept of a business incubator offering 360° support within a self-contained location. This has since been replicated across the UK, playing a key role in the success of the UK’s life sciences industry.”
The exit comes on the back of a series of new investments across the East Midlands, with nearly GBP30 million of capital deployed over the past six months as BGF continues to support the region’s growth economy businesses. These include investments into mobile data specialist and eSIM Mobile Virtual Network Operator (MVNO), Jola Cloud Solutions Ltd; lock and hardware supplier Brisant Secure; Derbyshire housebuilder, Woodall Homes and fast-growth ecommerce business, UK Flooring Direct.
BGF investor, Seb Saywood, says: “Our recent investments demonstrate the resilience of the East Midlands, which is experiencing a high volume of local activity despite the obvious challenges. There have been seismic changes in almost all sectors, but this has also created opportunity, and the region is strong across a wide range of industries so is well placed to embrace these opportunities.”
