Private equity firm GHO Capital Partners, reflecting European investors’ bullishness for healthcare, topped expectations by raising almost $1.1 billion for its second fund.
The total, surpassing GHO’s $885 million goal, is a record for a fund targeting European healthcare, according to data from research group Preqin.
The U.K.-based European healthcare specialist raised twice the amount of its first fund in 2015. Five-year-old GHO, founded by Andreas Ponti and Michael Mortimer, has $2.2 billion in assets under management, making it Europe’s largest investment firm dedicated to healthcare.
In a statement, GHO said that the “size of the fund” reflected “the increasing maturity of the European healthcare sector and the level of investor interest and support for developing healthcare businesses.”
The firm also said that “Fund II” presented “an exciting opportunity to bring “better healthcare to more people.”
European private equity firms are boosting healthcare investments. European private equity funds have raised $30.8 billion for healthcare deals so far this year, already exceeding last year’s total of $24.1 billion, according to PitchBook. Data also indicates larger, fewer deals: the number of transactions dropped to 310 so far this year from 429 last year, according to PitchBook data.
Venture firms have raised nearly $9 billion, up from about $8 billion last year, despite a similar decline in the number of deals from 919 last year to 746 this year.
- In 2017, the European Patent Office received more than 13,000 patent applications in medical technology, the most for any sector in Europe. The EPO received about 6,300 applications apiece in pharma and biotechnology. Combined, the total represents about 15% of all patent applications.
- The number of EPO patent applications in medical technology has doubled over the past decade, while pharma and biotech patent applications have flattened.
- GHO Fund II has already invested in biotech firms Sterling Pharma Solutions and BioAgilytix.
