Kurma Partners, the healthcare-focused investment firm owned by Eurazeo, has completed the final close of its Biofund IV vehicle at €215 million, marking a significant expansion of its early-stage biotech strategy in Europe. The new fund is aimed at backing therapeutic innovation for severe and hard-to-treat diseases, with a model that combines company creation, venture financing, and close links to leading academic research. The close also lifts Kurma Partners’ total assets under management across its various strategies to €1 billion, underlining its growing weight in the European life sciences investment market.
Fundraising Milestone
Biofund IV represents a notable step up from the firm’s previous biotech fund, which closed at €160 million, making the latest vehicle roughly 35 percent larger. That increase signals continued appetite from both strategic and financial investors for Kurma’s long-standing approach of identifying promising science early and building companies around it. The fund is expected to back around 20 businesses in total, and Kurma has already deployed capital into 11 of them.
Backers and Market Signal
The investor base for Biofund IV includes Eurazeo alongside several high-profile institutions and industry players, notably Australian biopharmaceutical group CSL, the European Investment Fund, and Bpifrance. According to the announcement, the backing also extends to other European institutional investors and family offices, giving the fund a broad and diversified capital base. Their support reflects confidence not only in Kurma’s sourcing model but also in the wider proposition that Europe’s academic research base can produce globally competitive biotech companies when paired with the right financing and operational expertise.
Track Record and Strategy
Kurma is positioning Biofund IV as the continuation of a strategy that has already produced several high-profile exits across prior vintages. Among the most prominent examples are Amolyt Pharma’s sale to AstraZeneca, Emergence Therapeutics’ acquisition by Eli Lilly, and Corlieve Therapeutics’ sale to UniQure, while the more recent acquisition of ImCheck by Ipsen further reinforced the firm’s record in building clinically relevant biotech assets. The firm says its investment approach remains balanced between funding newly launched start-ups and creating companies from scratch, with the goal of reducing execution risk while accelerating development timelines.
Existing Portfolio and Platform
The first 11 investments made by Biofund IV illustrate the pan-European reach of the strategy, spanning companies in France, Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Belgium, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and the United States. These portfolio companies are focused on areas including cancer immunotherapy, autoimmune disorders, respiratory disease, rare cardiac conditions, depression, and next-generation cancer vaccines, giving the fund broad exposure across therapeutic modalities and disease categories. Kurma is also relying on Argobio Studio, the biotech venture builder it co-founded with Bpifrance, to help incubate new companies, with Argobio having already backed eight businesses, three of which have secured first rounds of financing.
The closing of Biofund IV strengthens Kurma Partners’ claim to being one of Europe’s key architects of early-stage biotech formation, particularly through its effort to connect university research, industrial insight, and venture capital. With a larger fund, an established exit history, and an incubation platform designed to generate new investable companies, the firm is seeking to deepen its role in translating European science into commercial therapeutics. At a time when strategic autonomy, innovation capacity, and healthcare competitiveness are becoming more central to Europe’s agenda, the fund’s launch arrives with both financial and policy relevance.