New biomedicine and digital health investment fund GENESIS Ventures created in Barcelona

GENESIS Ventures has presented today, a new investment fund located in Barcelona and made up of various family offices that are looking to invest in research and business projects in the very early stages in the field of biomedicine (therapeutics, diagnostics, medical devices, digital health, etc.). GENESIS Ventures aims to help entrepreneurs put together the capital they need for their research in order to later attract series-A corporate funds or venture capital.

The event was held at the Barcelona Science Park with more than one hundred researchers and entrepreneurs from the sector and representatives from benchmark associations, including the CataloniaBio association of companies, EIT Health Spain and the Spanish Federation of Healthcare Technology Companies (Fenin).

“We’re an atypical funding vehicle and the only one of our kind in Spain,” explained Josep Lluís Falcó, founder and CEO of GENESIS Biomed , the company managing the fund. “We’ll go out and do the science investors and regulatory agencies want, with the clear goal of developing innovative products. We’ll invest in projects that aren’t even spin-offs or start-ups yet and guide them through shaping their business plans and finding the private funding they need afterwards. We’re in the process of scouting for projects to invest in,” he explained. Falcó has 20 years of experience as a business consultant in this sector and has raised more than €40 million over the past 4 years.

The new fund will initially have €610,000 and expects to complete eight operations by October 2019. Catalan biomedical companies attracted €153.1 million in investment in 2016, an all-time record for the sector, and 4 in 10 will need to turn to new funding sources within the year, according to a study by CataloniaBio and EY