A first-round funding of 3 millions euros has been raised by Vésale Bioscience, the spin-out of the Vésale Pharma group which focuses on phagotherapy.
In order to increase its financial resources and reach the stock market, the group has hired beLean.net Partner Guillaume de Viron as Head of Finance for the phage therapy division. Co-founder of Univercells, former CFO of MaSTHerCell, “de Viron is a veteran of biotech and medtech” (freely translated from L’Echo, 2021). He has worked for OncoDNA, Imcyse and Kitozyme, among others (see our previous article for more details).
How was beLean.net able to attract a first round of investors within a few weeks only?
According to Guillaume de Viron, “Phage therapy is in a particularly positive flux at the moment. The European Union is about to issue new regulations for treatments against resistant bacteria. At present, there is no effective alternative to phage therapy. Moreover, the number of companies active in this market has almost doubled in recent months.” (freely translated from L’Echo, 2021)
Given the moderate risk of the investment and the obviously promising niche, Vésale Bioscience was able to attract a group of private investors already active or familiar with the life sciences sector. In addition to Guillaume de Viron himself, these include Jérôme Marjoie, heir to the Laboratoires Fournier, and philanthropic investor via the Fournier-Majoie Foundation.
This round of financing opens and prepares the next one, by the end of this year. The aim is to raise 7 to 10 million euros from private investors before going to market. Initially planned for 2023, the IPO will be brought forward by a few months to keep up with the European regulatory openings concerning phage therapy.
Belgium is the basis of a high-performance ecosystem like few others in Europe, with the Royal Military Hospital, the KUL teams, … which are at the cutting edge of phagotherapy and with which Vésale Bioscience is now collaborating.
Source: L’Echo (2021)
Vésale Bioscience has retained our CFO-as-a-Service to support the financing of their growing activities and research. Since one year, we have provided them our expertise and advised them on their funding process and search for investors concerning shares on the secondary market:
- Define a company value based on bottom-up and top-down approach
- Define a negotiation strategy based on milestones and other approach
- Support the negotiation in the interest of the company and the historical shareholders
- One-pager to explain the project to potential investors
- Propose a list of potential investors for approbation by the shareholder
- Negotiate terms for the acquisition
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