Amundi explores investments, the medical sector and exit strategies at MedTech Investing Europe Forum

The chairman of Supernova Invest, the pioneer and leader of deep tech investment in France, will discuss how investors, families and companies can achieve their goals at the in-person MedTech Investing Europe Forum.

Pierre-Emmanuel Struyen is the chairman and managing director of Supernova Invest, a joint venture with European asset manager Amundi Real Assets. Struyen will join a session at the Campden Wealth forum in Lausanne, Switzerland on exit strategies. With various options available, from floating on the stock market to mergers and acquisitions, how can both investor and company be aligned in their objectives and work together to achieve their goals?

Before his MedTech engagement, Struyen tells CampdenFB that France is an exciting scene for deep tech, allowing Amundi to deliver financial and non-financial results that have attracted industrial, institutional as well as individual subscribers to its funds.

What message do you want to send to private investors in-person at the MedTech Investing Europe Forum?

Supernova Invest, the venture franchise of Amundi, is a pioneering venture capital firm leading the way in deep tech investments.

Since early 2000, we have financed 100 companies and have developed an active portfolio of more than 70 innovative companies across four key impact sectors: Energy and agriculture transition, health, digital technologies and industry 4.0. This activity leads to a solid performance track record with a multiple of 4x since 2000.

Through our deep tech positioning in key development sectors, the majority our portfolio companies make a positive contribution to United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals.

In 2021, Supernova Invest launches its first fund dedicated to the late stage maturity: Ambition Industrie. Its investment strategy is to invest in deep tech scale-ups with a mature product offering to finance the commercial hyper-growth and become leaders in their markets.

How is deep tech impacting the medical sector and what developments are exciting you the most and why?

As the essence of deep tech is trying to solve big issues that really affect the world, it genuinely is at the core of medical innovation.

Among others sub-sectors we are most excited about developments in biotechnology, MedTech and diagnosis.

•             In biotechnology, the increasing understanding of biological systems is driving a growing number of inventions; from targeted therapies to synthetic biology and through new biological scaffolds, the upcoming wave of therapeutic innovation has the potential to considerably impact the lives of patients suffering from serious illness.

•             In MedTech, significant headways in the miniaturisation of electronics, software design and data collection lay the foundations of the new era of minimally invasive and robotic assisted surgery.

•             Finally, in diagnosis, a new generation of decision tools empowered by Artificial Intelligence and relying on genomic insights are increasingly allowing for more personalised care pathways.

Breakthroughs across these three categories have in common the potential to address big unmet needs and to radically improve the way we experience healthcare.

Tell us about Supernova Invest's ventures into another hot sector of deep tech—energy transition. 

Supernova Invest invested in 2010 in SymbioFCell, a startup developing hydrogen powered fuel cell based on a technology developed and licensed by CEA, the leading French research and development institution. At that time, we envisioned that compact fuel cell would be key for the future of automotive in a decarbonated world. The company successfully turned technology into a first generation of pilot products and the Michelin group decided to make a strategic investment in 2014, and eventually acquire it in 2019.

Today Symbio designs, validates, manufactures and sells compact fuel cell systems from 40 to 300kW, covering the needs of passenger car, light commercial vehicle, bus, coach, pick-up truck and medium to heavy duty truck applications.

What criteria does Supernova Invest look for considering which ventures to invest in?

Our investment strategy is targeting disruptive innovation (aka deep tech) as a means to create products and services for massive market in key development area such as energy transition, healthcare or digital technologies. So we have in depth analysis of the underlying technologies, their protection (patents) and the size of the addressable markets.

The quality of the management, its vision and ability to drive a fast growing company is equally important as well as the industrial partners and early customers. Part of the magic recipe is that our team of investors has strong technology and industrial skills acquired in fast growing start-ups and corporations.

How are family investors getting involved in Supernova Invest and what are the returns on their investments?

Founders, entrepreneurs and family investors in general are more and more attracted by real assets. Our portfolio of investment is a collection of successful entrepreneurial stories targeting sustainable future needs. Some investors were founders or managers of companies funded by Supernova Invest in the past. They bring their experience, network and experience to our investment strategy and some of them are members of the LP’s investment committee.

Campden Wealth hosts in-person its 31st MedTech Investing Europe Forum in Lausanne, Switzerland on 21–22 September 2021.