- Forbion has raised €2.3 billion across two funds, its largest fundraise to date.
- The funds can back about 30 biotechs and lift assets under management to about €7.5 billion.
- Eli Lilly, PGGM, MN, KfW Capital, and the Kauffman Foundation are among the backers.
Biotech is short of capital. That is the view of Forbion‘s own co-founder, whose firm has nonetheless raised €2.3 billion across two new funds.
Forbion, a life sciences venture capital firm based in Naarden, the Netherlands, announced the close. It called the raise its largest to date, said it substantially exceeded the target, and said it came together at pace.
The money sits in Forbion Growth Opportunities Fund IV and Forbion Ventures Fund VIII, which together can finance about 30 companies. The first investments are already completed. Assets under management rise to about €7.5 billion, up by half from the €5 billion Forbion reported in October 2024.
Backers include Dutch pension managers MN and PGGM; KfW Capital, the venture arm of German development bank KfW; the US-based Kauffman Foundation; and pharmaceutical group Eli Lilly and Company.
Forbion said existing and new investors took part but did not say which is which. Lilly’s link to the firm goes back at least to 2020, when it was among the new investors in Forbion’s first Growth Opportunities fund.
Two funds for two stages of drug development
Growth Opportunities Fund IV focuses mainly on later-stage biopharma companies in Europe and North America that are developing novel therapies for areas of high medical need. Ventures Fund VIII will back therapeutics-focused biotech companies, including existing businesses and new ventures built around promising assets and proven teams. Forbion did not say how the €2.3 billion splits between the two.
Sander Slootweg, Forbion’s managing partner and co-founder, said, “Our successful fundraising gives us significant dry powder in a market characterized by a general shortage of capital. We will continue to focus on building and scaling those companies that develop the most paradigm-shifting treatments, addressing true unmet needs and delivering societal impact.”
Robbert van de Griendt, a general partner who leads investor relations and impact at Forbion, added: “We’re delighted that so many leading investors have once again placed their confidence in Forbion’s proven ability to deploy capital successfully. We’ve achieved our largest fundraising to date in a demanding market environment — a powerful endorsement of Forbion’s consistent track record of generating impactful returns.”
The raise is about 10% larger than the €2.09 billion Forbion raised in October 2024 across Growth Opportunities Fund III (€1.2 billion) and Ventures Fund VII (€890 million). That round was also billed as its largest at the time.
Forbion began in 2000 as ABN AMRO Capital Life Sciences, the bank’s venture arm, and became independent in 2006. It says it has financed 142 companies, 37 of them created by the firm itself, and claims a consistent record of top-quartile performance. Its portfolio companies have delivered 21 approved medical products that have reached more than 1.6 million patients, Forbion says, citing its 2025 Impact & ESG report.
Outside human health, it invests through a BioEconomy strategy. Forbion co-led Tropic’s €91.3 million Series C and led PACT’s £16 million Series A alongside HV.
Where biotech money is going
Slootweg’s “general shortage of capital” has numbers behind it, though not simple ones. EY’s 2026 Biotech Beyond Borders report, which covers US and European biotech companies, found that biotech financing reached $68.5 billion in 2025, up 11% from 2024. The money was uneven. Of the $20.6 billion raised in venture capital, late-stage deals accounted for $10 billion across 254 rounds, while early-stage value and volume fell. Only 45% of emerging biopharma companies had more than two years of cash left at the end of 2025, according to the full report.
Forbion’s two funds sit on both sides of that split. Growth Opportunities Fund IV targets the later-stage companies where EY says venture money is concentrating. Ventures Fund VIII, which backs and builds younger companies, covers the thinner early-stage end. How much each fund holds will decide which side gets the bigger cheques.
A bigger cheque than its European rivals
Other European specialists have raised this year too. Paris-based Jeito Capitalannounced the close of its second fund, Jeito II, at $1.2 billion, above €1 billion, taking its assets under management to €1.6 billion. TFN covered the close. PitchBook’s Q2 2026 European Venture Report listed it as the largest European VC fundraise of 2026 up to that point. Forbion’s haul is more than double.
Sofinnova Partners closed its Capital XI fund at €650 million in November 2025, so Forbion’s raise is more than three times larger. Sofinnova has since closed an €82 million medtech fund, and France’s Kurma Partners closed its €215 million Biofund IV in April.
Scale does not make the market easy. PitchBook puts Europe at 20.5% of global biotech funding, its highest share since 2018, yet US biotech startups still raise about three times as much.
About 30 slots across two funds is not many, which makes each one valuable. The companies that win them get a backer with enough capital to carry them through expensive clinical development. The rest will still face the market Slootweg describes.
Whether this raise signals a recovery in European biotech funding or a concentration of it in a few large managers is the question the next round of fund closes will answer. For names to watch, see TFN’s list of 12 European biotech startups picked by top VCs.
