Columbus Venture Partners, a Spanish venture capital firm specializing in biotechnology and life sciences, announces the launch of Columbus Innvierte Life Sciences Fund V, a new fund with a target size of €200 million and an expected oversubscription capacity of up to €220 million. The fund is designed to accelerate the growth of innovative companies in biotechnology, healthcare, artificial intelligence applied to life sciences, and strategic infrastructure supporting the development of new therapies.
With this new vehicle, the Spanish venture capital firm consolidates an investment strategy based on the early identification of technologies capable of transforming medicine and generating industrial value. The fund is designed to support both the development of innovative therapies and the creation of technological and operational platforms capable of accelerating research, clinical development, manufacturing, and market access processes.
The fund will primarily focus on companies from Series A onwards, while retaining the flexibility to participate in exceptional opportunities at any stage. The average investment is expected to be around €15 million per company throughout the investment period, including both initial capital and follow-on investments.
This fifth fund further strengthens Columbus Venture Partners’ position as one of the leading healthcare-focused investment platforms in Southern Europe and reinforces its differentiated strategy: investing not only in drug development companies, but also in industrial and technology businesses that address critical bottlenecks in the development, manufacturing, and scaling of new medical solutions.
Investments will be deployed across three major strategic themes that Columbus Venture Partners considers essential for the next generation of life sciences innovation.
The first is longevity and healthy aging, an area where the convergence of biology, translational medicine, advanced diagnostics, and novel therapeutic platforms is creating significant opportunities.
“We will seek companies capable of addressing key biological mechanisms of aging, age-related diseases, frailty, immunosenescence, and functional decline, always with a rigorous scientific, clinical, and regulatory approach,” explains Jose Mesa, Partner at the firm.
The second theme is the reindustrialization of Europe’s healthcare sector, particularly in areas where external dependency, insufficient production capacity, or fragmented value chains limit the continent’s competitiveness.
“In this area, we will invest in industrial, technology, and specialized service companies that strengthen critical capabilities in manufacturing, development, scaling, supply chain, quality control, CMC development, advanced therapies, bioprocessing, and enabling technologies for the healthcare sector. Europe needs to rebuild its industrial strength in healthcare, and we believe there is a strategic investment opportunity,” adds Mesa.
The third theme is artificial intelligence applied to life sciences, understood not as a generic category but as a transformative tool to improve drug discovery and development, optimize clinical trials, accelerate diagnostics, personalize treatments, and increase operational efficiency across healthcare systems.
“We will prioritize companies where AI is integrated into a clinically relevant, defensible value proposition with a clear path toward regulatory, medical, or industrial adoption,” concludes the Partner.
“The strategy behind the fund responds to the growing need to strengthen industrial and technological capabilities within the healthcare sector, at a time marked by accelerating scientific advances, increasing regulatory complexity, and the need to shorten development timelines,” says Julen Oyarzabal, Partner and member of the investment team behind Columbus Venture Partners’ fifth fund.
Meanwhile, Columbus Venture Partners’ founders, Damià Tormo and Javier García, highlight “the differentiated model represented by this project within the European venture capital ecosystem, actively participating in the creation and scaling of globally impactful biotechnology companies from their earliest stages.”
“Through our various funds, we have supported projects in gene therapy, immuno-oncology, biopharmaceutical manufacturing, proton therapy, and advanced technology platforms,” the founders explain. “This new fund represents the culmination of a strategy we have been developing since the firm’s inception, combining investment in high-impact science with the creation of industrial and technological capabilities that enable that science to reach patients faster and more effectively.”
The fund has already begun deploying capital through three strategic investments that reflect Columbus Venture Partners’ vision for the future of the industry.
First, the firm invested in Sermes CRO, a Spanish contract research organization specializing in the comprehensive management of clinical trials and related services. This investment will support the company’s growth and strengthen capabilities in clinical research, European regulatory affairs, advanced therapies, and data- and AI-driven technological solutions.
The fund has also led an investment in Visium, a Swiss company specializing in artificial intelligence and data solutions for highly regulated industries. The company works with leading international pharmaceutical and biotechnology groups to transform critical processes through generative AI, automation, and advanced data analytics.
The investment in Visium reflects Columbus Venture Partners’ commitment to technology platforms capable of redesigning complex operational processes within pharmaceutical companies, biotechnology firms, and clinical trial management organizations, enabling greater efficiency, scalability, and acceleration of biomedical development.
The most recent investment has been in ONA Therapeutics, representing the second-largest biotech financing round in Europe so far in 2026. The $86.6 million financing round, led by Columbus Venture Partners, will accelerate two strategic programs targeting treatment-resistant breast and colorectal cancers.
These three investments reflect Columbus Venture Partners’ vision of the future of healthcare: companies capable of combining science, technology, and industrial capabilities to eliminate structural bottlenecks across the healthcare ecosystem.
“Our goal is to continue identifying exceptional teams and differentiated technologies with global scaling potential. This fifth fund allows us to reinforce our commitment to platforms that accelerate biomedical development through artificial intelligence, automation, and operational innovation,” says Damià Tormo.
“We believe that companies capable of transforming the structural efficiency of the healthcare ecosystem will play a decisive role in the next generation of life sciences. Europe needs to strengthen its industrial and technological capabilities in healthcare, and we want to support the companies leading that transformation,” he concludes.
Since its founding in 2016, Columbus Venture Partners has actively participated in the creation, financing, and scaling of internationally focused biotechnology and healthcare companies. Over the past decade, the firm has contributed to projects in advanced therapies, immuno-oncology, rare diseases, diagnostics, proton therapy, biopharmaceutical manufacturing, and healthcare technology platforms.
Columbus Venture Partners has achieved several notable exits through landmark corporate transactions across different healthcare segments. These include Viralgen/AskBio’s acquisition by Bayer, integrating one of the world’s leading AAV-based gene therapy manufacturing platforms into the German group; Sanifit, acquired by Vifor Pharma; PTS/Curapath, a specialist in advanced drug delivery technologies acquired by Arcline Investment Management; and Syngoi Technologies, a synthetic DNA platform for advanced therapies acquired by the U.S.-based Artis BioSolutions.
These transactions are complemented by Columbus Venture Partners’ role in the development of Spain’s first proton therapy center, later integrated into Quirónsalud, further consolidating the firm’s track record of building companies and strategic assets in biotechnology, enabling technologies, and critical life sciences infrastructure.
Columbus Venture Partners is a Spanish venture capital firm specializing in biotechnology and life sciences, founded in Valencia in 2016. With more than €800 million in assets under management, the firm has developed a differentiated investment model and built a strong track record in the development of industrial platforms for advanced therapies. Columbus Venture Partners actively participates in the creation and growth of more than 60% of the companies within its portfolio.
More information: www.columbusvp.com
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