Investor Profile: Sofinnova Partners — Thesis, Cheque Size & How to Apply

Building a life-sciences company in Europe and wondering how to get funding from Sofinnova Partners? Founded in 1972 and headquartered in Paris, this is one of Europe's pioneering and largest life-sciences VCs, with over €4 billion under management. Sofinnova Partners funding spans the full life-sciences value chain from seed to later stage, and the firm describes itself as a hands-on 'company builder' that acts as founding or lead investor. Its dedicated strategies — Capital, MD Start, Crossover, Industrial Biotech, Telethon, Digital Medicine and Biovelocita — make it a platform rather than a single fund.

Thesis and sweet spot

Sofinnova Partners specialises in healthcare and sustainability, investing across biopharma, medtech and industrial biotech. The firm operates dedicated strategies for each segment: Sofinnova Capital is the flagship early-stage biopharma and medtech strategy; MD Start is an in-house medtech accelerator that creates companies from inception; Biovelocita is a biotech accelerator built with leading research organisations. Offices in Paris, London and Milan anchor its European footprint.

The sweet spot is founders who want a lead investor that builds alongside them — Sofinnova frequently acts as a founding investor, creating companies from academic science through MD Start and Biovelocita rather than waiting for formed startups to appear.

Cheque size and fund

Sofinnova manages over €4B (per the firm's site and releases). Recent closes include Sofinnova Capital XI at €650M (2025) and MD Start IV at €82M (September 2026, to create 6-8 companies). Trade press quoting the chairman reported about $1.4B raised across strategies in the year to March 2025. The firm does not publicly disclose a cheque-size range — a third-party directory's €0-€5M+ figure is unverified and is not repeated here.

Notable portfolio

The portfolio includes major European life-sciences outcomes: LimFlow (acquired by Inari Medical for up to €392M), PreCARDIA (acquired by Abiomed), CorWave, BrightHeart, Moon Surgical, SafeHeal, Ablynx, Ascendis Pharma, HOOKIPA Pharma, Pixium Vision, ProQR Therapeutics, CoreValve (acquired by Medtronic in 2009), Shockwave, Calliditas, Pi-Cardia and DBV Technologies. The list spans medtech, biopharma and digital medicine — the platform's breadth in action.

Partners

The firm is led by chairman and managing partner Antoine Papiernik, with MD Start partners Anne Osdoit, Cécile Dupont and Mano Iyer among the named leadership. The partnership's longevity — five decades in life sciences — is itself part of the firm's credibility with founders and co-investors.

Programs, credits and perks

Sofinnova MD Start is a genuine in-house medtech accelerator that creates companies from inception (MD Start IV: €82M to create 6-8 companies), and Sofinnova Biovelocita is a biotech accelerator run with leading research organisations. For scientist-founders, these are structured company-creation programmes, not demo-day accelerators.

How to apply for funding

Sofinnova Partners does not publish a pitch email or application form. Life-sciences founders typically reach the team through academic, clinical or industry networks — and scientist-founders should note the MD Start and Biovelocita creation programmes as structured routes into the platform.