LBO France’s digital health venture strategy continues to gain ground with the Digital Health 2 fund, which has just completed its fundraising at EUR155 million, twice as much as its predecessor fund, SISA which closed in 2017 at EUR70 million.
As a pioneer in digital healthcare since 2014, LBO France received a renewed vote of confidence from almost all investors who had put their money in the first SISA fund, including institutional LPs such as Bpifrance, about 15 insurance companies and family offices. Most of these long-standing investors put even more money into the new fund. Digital Health 2 also welcomed on board new, well-known corporate investors, such as Orange via its Orange Digital Investment holding company.
Digital Health 2 aims to finance by 2024 about 15 B2B-dedicated SMEs in France and Western Europe, most of whose revenues are expanding rapidly.
The fund invests between EUR5 million and EUR20 million in each company.
Led by Valéry Huot, the venture investment team consists of professionals from both the tech and healthcare sectors. It expanded in 2018 with the arrival of two Franco-American physicians – Sébastien Woynar as Investment Director, and Philippe Chambon as Venture Partner.
Huot, Partner and Head of Venture at LBO France, says: “With EUR155m raised at this final closing, we have achieved our objective of being twice the size of our first fund. This allows us to more closely support the growth of companies in the portfolio. The portfolio that we have set up in Western Europe pursues the strategy that we have offered to our investors, i.e., identifying and supporting e-health start-ups to transform them into sector leaders. We will also be expanding our activities in Western Europe, particularly in Germany, which possesses a robust healthcare system that is ripe for innovations.”
Franck Noiret, Venture Managing Director, says: “Digital Health 2’s larger size gives LBO France’s venture team the means to fund a larger number of ambitious digital health projects. We are delighted to provide long-term support to new entrepreneurs and to avail them of our know-how and experience in this area.”
Sébastien Woynar, Venture Investment Director, says: “The pandemic has revealed the full importance of new healthcare technologies. Some practices – such as teleconsultation, remote recruiting for clinical trials, widespread adoption of tools for compiling and analysing data for better diagnoses and prognoses, etc. – have moved into the mainstream and increased the need to roll out greater resources in this sector.”
