Sofinnova Ventures

140 Geary Street, Tenth Floor
San Francisco
California
94108
United States

Tel: 415-228-3380
Fax: 415-228-3390

Website: http://www.sofinnova.com/

Email: info@sofinnova.com

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About Sofinnova Ventures

As a small, highly skilled firm focused on early stage investments, Sofinnova Ventures brings unique benefits to our portfolio companies and prospective entrepreneurs. We pride ourselves on flexibility and fast decision making. Our real world operating experience and proven record of collaboration make us an ideal firm for innovative startup and early stage companies. Our unique geographic positioning leverages the best opportunities and synergies in the U.S. West Coast, Europe and Israel.
Geographic Synergy Our Managing Directors' expertise is of the greatest help to early stage companies and our skills prove beneficial to companies on both sides of the Atlantic. We invest both in companies seeking growth through new geographic markets yet we also invest in U.S.-based startup companies primarily targeting only their home market. While we can often meet a startup's entire investment needs we frequently invest in conjunction with U.S. venture capital syndicates or Sofinnova Partners. While the majority of our investing is in the U.S. and mostly on the West Coast, about 25% of our investments are made in Europe and Israel.
American-based investments benefit from Sofinnova's intimate knowledge of the French market and its Parisian connections. This network includes its shareholders and its relationships with world-class research centers and Universities. These factors provide greater access and better penetration of American products within France. Conversely, we often provide invaluable assistance to our European and Israeli portfolio companies in entering American markets.
Emphasis Sofinnova targets specific areas of the Information Technology sector (about 70% of our funds), as well as specific segments of the Life Sciences market (about 30%). The bulk of our investments are in startup and early stage companies but we invest about 15% to 20% of our funds in later stage companies in which the management team is in place and the product has been developed.
Within the large and dynamic Information Technology industry we focus on telecommunications, networking, Internet-related software, enterprise general software and wireless technologies. But we are flexible and have considered and invested in promising ventures outside these areas of focus. The technology sector is in continual upheaval, with new companies usurping older established technologies. In the past, as shown by its successful investments, Sofinnova has been able to catch many winners in these series of never-ending new waves such as Premisys, Ray Dream/Fractal, and Network Peripherals. No other segment of American industry has seen so many opportunities in such a short period of time.
In the Life Sciences sector we target opportunities in biotechnology and pharmaceuticals, with emphasis on therapeutics and medical devices. We focus on promising seed stage and startup investments, made possible by the strong scientific network of our Life Sciences Managing Director Michael Powell, but we also invest in intermediate stage companies that are believed to be significantly undervalued, whose technology has not been fully appreciated by the average investor. We will search out investments that provide a balance between early stage "research" projects such as platform or revolutionary technologies, and the development-oriented opportunities that will capture existing markets through innovation rather than invention
Investment Criteria We consider these factors in every investment opportunity:
  • The quality of the management team, and in particular the experience of its members and the team's business potential and cohesiveness;
  • The potential for growth, as offered by the technology, the products and the targeted markets;
  • The valuation of the company: we will invest only in companies which have a very attractive valuation, and therefore offer a substantial potential for capital gain;
  • A clear interest demonstrated by the management team for capital appreciation and liquidity.

Key Management: Alain Azan, azan@sofinnova.com Eric Buatois, eric@sofinnova.com Robert Carr, carr@sofinnova.com James Healy, jim@sofinnova.com Dr. Michael Powell, powell@sofinnova.com Nathalie Auber, auber@sofinnova.com
Last Updated 1-21-02

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