Venture Capital
Venture capital is of vital importance for companies active in sectors as technology, life sciences and cleantech. Gimv is a solid partner in these areas, offering promising companies resources for developing and marketing their ground-breaking products and technologies.
Venture Capital investment focus
- young firms with strong growth ambitions and established companies looking for fresh capital;
- companies operating in technology, cleantech and life sciences;
- investments from EUR 0.5 million to 25 million;
- focus on Europe;
- preferably investment round leader.
Pan-European player
Internationalisation is very important for companies in these sectors of the future. It is equally important for venture capital providers. Gimv more than fulfills this requirement with offices in Belgium, the Netherlands, France and Germany, a dedicated team consisting of five different nationalities and portfolio companies with offices in ten countries. All this makes Gimv Venture Capital a key pan-European player.
Expertise
The multidisciplinary nature of the teams, each with its own focus and expertise in specific areas like agri-business, biotech, cleantech, telecoms, internet, software and electronics, is invaluable. The venture capital team consists of a mix of experienced professionals with technological and financial backgrounds, complemented by a network of entrepreneurs, industry experts and other international venture capitalists as co-investors Synergy between the various teams, including Buyouts & Growth, often reveals into unsuspected veins of added value. Examples of this are Made in Design and XDC.
Partner of companies
Gimv invests people and resources into its portfolio companies. The investment managers bring their accumulated expertise, experience and knowledge to the portfolio company. In this way Gimv goes beyond its role as financier. By serving on the board of portfolio companies, Venture Capital can contribute to strong business plans and help design strategies for growth, but without stepping in management’s shoes.
Solid investor
As an independent investment company Gimv presents itself as a stable and long-term partner. This strategy, coupled with its financial strength and flexibility as an investor, is clearly reflected in the investment in Inside Secure. In 2010 Gimv doubled its stake in this French technology company, which is the market leader in contactless smart cards for secure transactions. Gimv has been a shareholder in this company for more than 13 years and made extra capital available to enable the company to realise its buy-and-build strategy. Gimv’s expertise ensured the smooth acquisition of Atmel Corporation’s Secure Microcontroller Solutions division.
Track record
Since its inception in 1980, Venture Capital has had a successful track record and it has created considerable added value. In recent years, the team has brought 16 companies to the stock market and carried out many exits. IPOs and exits include Movetis, Telenet, Devgen, Mobistar, Business Architects, Filepool and, recently, Plexxikon.
Plexxikon exit delivers high added value
In March 2011 Plexxikon was sold to Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo for USD 805 million. Subsequent milestones may provide an additional USD 130 million.
With this sale, Venture Capital adds a new successful dossier to its CV. It provides considerable added value for shareholders. In 2002 Gimv was the only European investment company that took a capital holding, together with an international group of biotech investors, in US company Plexxikon. This company has since risen to market leader in the development of small molecule pharmaceuticals.