Monday 18 September 2017 1:04pm

Healthcare-focused private equity firm ARCHIMED has raised a €315m fund in just four months

Lucy White

The Med II fund will invest in the medtech, biopharma, care services and preventative healthcare sectors (Source: Getty)

Private equity firm ARCHIMED, which was founded by the former healthcare division leaders at UK buyout house 3i, has closed its second fund at €315m (£278m).

After just four months of fundraising, Med II has exceeded its target by more than 25 per cent and is double the size of its predecessor.

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The firm, which currently owns UK-based occupational health business RehabWorks, will complete unleveraged growth investments and leveraged buyouts in the medtech, biopharma, care services and preventative healthcare sectors.

“Our mission is to help smaller healthcare companies profitably expand through accelerated internationalisation and innovation,” said Denis Ribon, ARCHIMED chairman and previously the global head of healthcare at 3i.

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Nicolas de Nazelle, managing partner at placement agent Triago, noted that the fundraising is “an example of the traction knowledgeable specialists in relatively uncrowded market spaces have when the traditional buyout arena is seen as crowded and expensive”.

A number of private equity firms have raised record amounts this year, and in extremely quick times. The asset class has been returning impressive amounts of money to investors recently, as performance has boomed, who are in turn putting more and more money back into new funds.

The amount of money private equity firms have to hand means competition for assets is fierce, pushing up prices.

Over the last 16 years, France-based ARCHIMED has invested more than €1bn in 20-plus companies, and has generated a total return of more than 2.6 times invested capital.

Source: City AM