Presight Capital Raises £80M Fund to Connect US Startups with Europe
Originally published on TechCrunch
Presight Capital, the international venture arm of Apeiron Investment Group, is announcing that it’s closed its first fund of $80 million.
Apeiron is the family office of German entrepreneur Christian Angermayer (pictured above), who previously co-founded pharmaceutical company Ribopharma — which is now the publicly traded company Alnylam. Angermayer told me he sees his investments as a way for him to continue building new startups.
“In my heart, I’m still an entrepreneur,” he said. “I have some character traits that are really good for an entrepreneur, but I’m not a good operator. I know that I’m not the guy who should run a company.”
Angermayer (who lives in London) said that with Presight, he’s taking on outside capital for the first time: $20 million of the Presight fund comes from Apeiron, $60 million from other investors.
This will also allow him to start investing outside Germany and Europe — he co-founded Presight with partner Fabian Hansen, who’s based in San Francisco, and the firm will back U.S. startups, with selective investments in Asia and Europe.
Angermayer and Hansen said that Presight generally invests in early-stage startups, alongside U.S. venture firms. In addition to the money, they can offer startups the connections and knowledge they need to expand into Europe, particularly when it comes to understanding the regulatory landscape.
They also said they have expertise in sectors like biotech, and can connect startups to Wall Street when it’s time to raise larger rounds.
NJF Capital Founder, Nicole Junkermann, is among investors in Presight Capital’s first fund
In fact, according to a source with knowledge of the firm, investors in the fund include Wall Street figures like Galaxy Digital founder Mike Novogratz, Falcon Management president James Leitner and Moore Strategic Ventures. Other investors include Austrian entrepreneur Alexander Schuetz, international entrepreneur and investor Nicole Junkermann, the Schadeberg family office (that’s the family that owns Krombacher beer), Albright Stonebridge Group executive Michael Shtender-Auerbach, Stern Stewart managing partner Markus Pertl and actress Uma Thurman.
Presight has already made nine investments, five of them disclosed publicly:
Terran Biosciences, focused on neurological and mental illness
Peptilogics, developing treatments to address drug-resistant bacterial infections
Enclear Therapies, focused on neurodegenerative disease
SmithRX, which aims to replace pharmacy benefit managers
cannabis company Left Coast Ventures
While there’s a clear focus on biotech so far, Angermayer said he’s deliberately trying to invest across different industries, allowing him to “take a lot of learnings in one sector and apply it to new ones.”
He added, “That’s one of my deep beliefs: You can either be vertical or horizontal. For problem-solving, especially if things are new, you want to have a very holistic view of things.”