News & Analysis

Sobera acquires healthcare directs portfolio

The Berlin-headquartered firm continues to acquire assets on a deal-by-deal basis and is unlikely to deviate from this strategy any time soon.

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Sobera Capital has acquired a portfolio of 12 holdings in early stage healthcare companies, continuing with its deal-by-deal approach to secondaries investing.

According to a statement from the life sciences-focused firm, the portfolio was acquired from Innoveas International, a UK subsidiary of German venture capital firm Innoveas, which makes seed and early stage investments in science and technology companies.

Funding from the deal came from a mix of family offices and entrepreneurs, the statement added.

Prize assets in the portfolio include anti-virals developer Presidio Pharmaceuticals, EffRx Pharmaceuticals, which focuses on musculoskeletal conditions, and MORE Medical Solutions, which makes devices for use in orthopaedic surgery.

Innoveas wanted to focus on a set of core, slightly more mature assets, according to Stefan Beil, managing partner at Sobera, adding that the portfolio was offered to Sobera exclusively by an intermediary.

He could not disclose the price, but it is understood to be in the in the single-digit millions.

Sobera Capital targets European growth and small-cap funds and assets in ICT, applied technologies and healthcare with a transaction size of up to €50 million.

The firm, which has been around since 2003, does direct secondaries, LP stake acquisitions and complex GP-led secondaries on a deal-by-deal basis. Given the immaturity of its current asset base, the firm is not likely to raise a blind pool fund soon, Beil said.

“The risk profile [of early stage assets] is different from a mid-cap portfolio,” he said. “People want to see a [more mature] anchor portfolio, around which you could build a blind pool fund. But you cannot plan for that. It has to be an opportunistic approach.”

The firm has some experience with managing funds. In August 2016, it took over the management of four vehicles backed by a group of German savings banks. Initially evergreen vehicles, Sobera restructured them into closed-end private equity vehicles with fee- and carry- structures.