At BIO Europe Spring, we met Karen Wagner, a General Partner at Ysios, the VC dominating Spain’s investment scene. She told us what’s on the firm’s radar.
Spain’s largest VC has positioned itself in Barcelona, having identified the city’s potential to be the next biotech hub in Europe. It has funded key biotechs in Spain, including Sanifit, which claimed the record fundraising amount among Spanish biotechs, as well as Minoryx Therapeutics, Aelix and STAT-Diagnostica, as well as Cellerix, which is now part of the Belgian company TiGenix.
Ysios has now €200M under management, but it faced a tougher road than most since it was founded as the financial recession of 2008 came to the fore. Wagner remarked that surviving this period was perhaps the VC’s greatest accomplishment.
The year before the crash, in 2007, Wagner joined Ysios as a venture partner after a long career in business development. Now a general partner, she sits on the board of portfolio companies Kala Pharmaceuticals and Minoryx Therapeutics and is chairman of AELIX Therapeutics’ board.
Despite her serious upward trajectory in biotech and our collective daze from a couple of gruelling days at BIO Europe, we had a good laugh everything and got down to business about what’s next on the Spanish biotech scene.
Wagner elaborated on the observation that Spain has reached an inflection point for growth and international recognition. Here’s what she had to say about Ysios’ next steps!
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