bm|t newsletter Q1 2018
Dear valued Investee-Partners, Co-Investors, Partners,
We are excited to launch our quarterly newsletter, which we plan to use to inform you about important developments with our Investee-Partners (how we refer to our portfolio companies) and at bm|t.
In this Newsletter
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A brief History of bm|t
Before we dive in to the important activities in Q1 2018, we wanted to take the opportunity to shortly discuss bm|t’s history, development, and our vision with you. bm|t is celebrating its 15th birthday this year and some predecessor organizations/funds date back over 20 years. This long and consistent presence and the valuable networks that have been established have allowed us to build a strong position in Thüringen.
high ratio of technological prowess divided by investor awareness
For way of background, several of bm|t’s early-stage funds are supported with money from the European Fund for Regional Development, and in the past as part of this program Thüringen has qualified as a disadvantaged region characterized by a ›market hole‹, meaning that it is believed that public capital is needed to fill a void insufficiently addressed by private capital.
Generally, we believe that capital flows relatively efficiently to opportunity; however, our experience here in Thüringen does indeed belie this view, as across all the technology leading regions of the world where we have invested we have never encountered such a high ratio of technological prowess divided by investor awareness as we have here in Thüringen.
innovative technologies packed into effective and investable companies for the global markets
There is no doubt that this exceptional combination has many factors driving it, but clearly the history of the region and operating under another economic philosophy until 1989 has played a very large role in creating this unique situation. Indeed some of the relics from the time of a strong technological infrastructure with little or no opportunity for global distribution or capital raising are still present. However, we are glad to report that we believe bm|t’s and others’ work to fill this market hole over the last twenty years has borne fruit and we now feel that great strides are being made in increasing investor awareness for the tremendous technological prowess we are blessed to have in Thüringen.
The main contribution to that accomplishment, of course, lies with our Investee-Partners, who have become increasingly savvy about how to package innovative technologies into effective and investable companies with commercially-viable products and services for the global markets.
many value creating investments and exits
Certainly we in Thüringen still have a lot of wood to chop and definitely have much room for improvement and many opportunities to better execute on the assets that we have. However, thankfully we sense that Thüringen has made good progress in climbing out of our ›market hole‹ and are now that much stronger for it.
bm|t has experienced many value creating investments and exits over the years, but two from last year perfectly highlight the progress Thüringen has made in terms of becoming attractive for global investment. Being the lead investor and largest shareholder for fayteq’s sale to a Silicon-Valley based social media giant and for InflaRx’s Nasdaq IPO were cathartic events in our development here at bm|t. We also believe strongly that these happenings are just the tip of the spear, and that Thüringen has many more companies that will experience similarly impactful developments in the coming years.
our position and other conditions in Thüringen have never been better
Of course, we, like nearly all investors, have had some hard learnings along the way and some funds experienced a longer and deeper J‑Curve than we would have expected before turning sharply up recently. We are certainly better investors now for those valuable learnings and believe that our position in Thüringen and other conditions for investment success have never been better.
These developments give us significant confidence as we pursue our mission and vision.
Mission
We strengthen Thüringen’s Economy through targeted Investments in innovative and growth-oriented companies with high potential.
Vision
By 2025 we will catalyze further Thüringen Champions and generate a positive investment performance
key values
In the pursuit of this mission and vision we have chosen the following three key values to guide our thinking and actions: Transparency, Integrity, and Creativity.
Transparency
- We communicate openly with our partners and expect the same from them.
- We strive for all parties to a transaction to have a complete understanding and acceptance of all terms and conditions.
Integrity
- We act with a partnership mentality and in the interest of bm|t’s mission.
- We have high quality expectations, and all potential investments are analyzed with the same standards.
Creativity
- We believe in ideas and the actions that turn ideas into reality.
- We don’t know what the future will bring, but we do know that together with our Investee-Partners we can shape a bright and sustainable future.
it’s been quite a journey over the past 15 years
In conclusion, it’s been a quite purposeful and eventful journey at bm|t over the past 15 years, and we believe many positive transformations have occurred such that we are well positioned for sustained strong performance in the years ahead. Importantly, we at bm|t understand our role as investors, collaborators, enablers, and supporters for the main value creators for Thüringen, our Investee-Partners. We’re extremely proud of the portfolio of Investee-Partners that has been built over 15+ years and view it as having excellent investment potential.
We’re looking forward to continuing to work with all partners to create more success stories made in Thüringen.
Investor Days Thüringen
Welcome to the Family
In Q1 we closed a new investment in BianoGMP, a company with an intriguing history to its formation and compelling market opportunities that should be quickly addressable. The founders, Dr. Tobias Pöhlmann and Dr. Rolf Günther, while developing their own RNA-based medicines at BianoSciences, encountered the challenge that contracting out small-batch oligonucleotide production was extremely expensive, even prohibitive in some cases, for smaller biotech companies. The founders decided to put their strong scientific background to work and started BianoGMP in order to address this problem of overly expensive outsourced small-batch oligo production. The company and we believe BianoGMP’s offering will quickly resonate well with a myriad of customers that face the same challenge as BianoSciences.
Q1 2018 Investment Rounds
bm|t is pleased to announce that 2018 is off to a strong start for capital raises with seven Investee Partners having already closed financing rounds in the first quarter of the year. Over 10M EUR was raised by Biano GMP, ifesca, JenID, MasterPIM, OnCGnostics, Preventicus, and SiOptica, securing the necessary financing for important, value-driving advancements.
These investment rounds continued the strong momentum from 2017, in which over 150M EUR was raised by 21 of bm|t’s investee partners. We view the continuation of the fund raising momentum as a great sign for Thüringen and a strong signal to the investment community of the attractiveness of investing in the region.
Of particular note was that two of the first quarter financings attracted multiple million Euros from outside of Germany, with one investment coming from Switzerland and another from Belgium. We’re delighted to see that international institutional investors are increasingly recognizing the compelling investment opportunities here in Thüringen.
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