META Venture (part of META Investment, international fund specialized in early stage, high-growth firms by META Group, holding INSME Vice-Presidency), the shareholders of Italian Angels for Growth (IAG), the Emilia-Romagna Region, Andrea Pession and Roberto Tonelli, representing the 85% of the share capital of Biogenera, signed on the 25th of February a framework agreement with Life Care Capital SpA (LCC) leading to a merger by incorporation of LCC into BIOGENERA SpA by the end of July.
At the end of the transaction LCC will hold 471,606 Biogenera’s shares owned by Biogenera members.
Biogenera is a biotech company specialized in the research and development of biotechnological drugs based on gene-specific therapy able of acting directly at the origin (DNA), or rather at the gene level and in a highly specific manner.
META Group was the first investor in Biogenera in 2009, together with a number of Business Angels, this exit represents a great result since Biogenera achieved an equity value of 70 million euros and at LCC was assigned an equity value of approximately 139 million euros. Luigi Amati, President of META Venture and co-founder of IAG, stressed the importance of Biogenera being the first major investment concluded between IAG and META Venture, 26 out of the 28 business angels joined with enthusiasm the invitation of investing the considerable amount at the time of one million euro in the first round of financing.
Biogenera is a good confirmation that seeking excellence in research centres and in Italian and European universities can generate great results. In Italy the dialogue between universities, research, knowledge-intensive companies and investors still needs to be improved but the experience of Biogenera certainly will act as a positive and hopefully imitated model.
Discover more here.
Source: META Group
