Barcelona-based health and life science-focused VC Asabys Partners is announcing a €100m first close of its second fund. 

It’s targeting a total of €200m — which it hopes to hit later this year — and will look to invest in startups with scientifically proven medical solutions.

The first close came a couple of months later than the VC predicted when it announced it was raising for its second fund back in September — which could be a sign of the tricky fundraising landscape VCs are faced with at present. 

Where will the money be spent?

Asabys Partners will invest €2m-5m in 12-15 startups in the UK, Europe, Israel and the US. The firm says it will invest up to €15m in follow-on rounds. 

Associate Maite Malet says the firm is particularly interested in investing in startups working on solutions in diagnostics and therapeutics segments like:

• Women’s health
• Neurology 
• Chronic diseases
• Oncology
• Cardiology
• Immunology

Where’s the money coming from?

As with Asabys Partners’ first fund — which it raised in 2018 — Spanish banking group Banco Sabadell is the main private institutional investor. Other investors include the European Investment Fund — which recently announced a €3.75bn scaleup fund of funds — and Alantra.

Asabys’s portfolio

Asabys Partners was founded by Josep Sanfeliu — one of Spain’s most active angel investors in 2021 — and Clara Campàs. 

Since launching, the VC has backed 13 companies in the biopharma, medtech and digital health sectors and has around €217m assets-under-management, according to the firm. They include:

• Berlin-based gut health platform Cara Care, which raised $7m in June 2022.
• Iceland’s digital therapeutics startup Sidekick Health, which raised a $55m Series B in May 2022.
• Spanish startup Ona Therapeutics, which is developing novel therapies for metastatic cancer and raised €30m in June 2020.
• AgomAb Therapeutics, which is developing treatment to repair organ and tissue damage, raised a $40.5m Series B participated in by Pfizer.

Kai Nicol-Schwarz is a reporter at Sifted. He tweets from @NicolSchwarzK.