Jeito Capital Closes €1B Fund II at Record Scale

Jeito Capital, the Paris-based healthcare investment firm, closed its second fund at €1 billion ($1.2 billion) — a scale that puts it among the largest healthcare-focused venture funds raised in Europe over the past two years. The firm announced the final close Monday, with Swiss Life Asset Managers coming in as anchor investor alongside returning limited partners and new institutional backers.

The fund size represents more than a 4x jump from Jeito's debut vehicle, which closed at €225 million in 2020. That first fund backed 14 companies across rare diseases, oncology, and platform technologies — exits haven't been disclosed yet, but the firm says it's currently managing over €1.5 billion in total assets under management with this new raise.

Jeito's thesis centers on "breakthrough therapeutic innovation" — the kind of science-heavy, clinical-stage bets that require patience and deep domain expertise. The firm writes checks ranging from Series A through growth rounds, typically investing €20-80 million per company over multiple rounds. It's not chasing consumer health apps or digital therapeutics. This is capital for companies developing novel drug modalities, gene therapies, and precision oncology platforms.

What stands out here isn't just the fund size — it's the investor base. Swiss Life, one of Europe's largest life insurance and pension fund managers, doesn't write billion-dollar anchor checks casually. The partnership signals institutional conviction that healthcare innovation can deliver venture-scale returns even in an environment where biotech IPOs have been functionally frozen since late 2021. It also reflects a broader trend: European institutional capital is starting to deploy at scale into life sciences, a sector traditionally dominated by U.S. funds.

Swiss Life Asset Managers — which oversees roughly €280 billion across real estate, infrastructure, and private markets — anchored the fund with a commitment the firms aren't disclosing publicly, but sources familiar with the raise suggest it's in the €200-300 million range. That would make it one of the largest single LP commitments to a European healthcare venture fund in recent years.

The insurer's move reflects a strategic shift. Life insurers and pension funds have traditionally been underweight in venture capital, favoring buyout funds and credit strategies with more predictable cash flows. But as interest rates peaked and bond yields compressed portfolios, institutions started hunting for uncorrelated return streams. Healthcare venture — particularly late-stage and growth equity in therapeutics — offers exposure to scientific breakthroughs with valuations less tethered to public market sentiment than software or fintech.

Swiss Life's involvement also brings operational heft. The firm has been building out its private markets platform aggressively, adding healthcare specialists and co-investment capabilities. For Jeito, that means access to follow-on capital for breakout portfolio companies — a critical advantage in a sector where initial investments are just the table stakes and winners often require $200-500 million in total capital before reaching commercialization.

Beyond Swiss Life, the LP base includes family offices, sovereign wealth vehicles, and university endowments — a mix that suggests Jeito spent 18-24 months on the road to close this. The firm didn't disclose how long the fundraising process took, but European healthcare funds in this size range typically see 12-18 month cycles from first close to final. The lack of a prolonged fundraising struggle, especially in a market where some GPs are cutting target sizes or extending timelines, points to differentiation in the firm's track record or deal flow.

Jeito's investment mandate spans Europe and North America, with a focus on companies developing therapies for rare diseases, oncology, immunology, and neuroscience. The firm positions itself as a partner for "science-driven companies addressing critical unmet medical needs" — venture-speak for high-risk, high-reward bets on novel biology that could reshape treatment paradigms if the science works.

Portfolio companies from Fund I include names like Abivax (Euronext: ABVX), a clinical-stage biotech developing therapies for inflammatory diseases, and several undisclosed platform companies working on cell therapies and gene editing. The firm typically leads or co-leads rounds, taking board seats and embedding deeply with portfolio companies through clinical development and regulatory milestones.

The geographic split — Europe and North America — is deliberate. European biotechs often trade at valuation discounts to U.S. peers despite comparable science, creating entry-point advantages for funds willing to navigate fragmented European capital markets. But Jeito also invests in U.S. companies, recognizing that the FDA approval pathway and eventual commercialization scale in the U.S. often drive valuations and exit multiples.

Fund II will likely follow a similar allocation strategy, but with larger absolute check sizes given the fund's scale. A €1 billion fund targeting 15-20 portfolio companies implies initial checks in the €30-60 million range, with total capital per company potentially exceeding €100 million when accounting for follow-on rounds. That positions Jeito to lead Series B and C rounds for companies that have demonstrated early clinical proof of concept and are moving toward pivotal trials.

The rare disease space — where Jeito concentrates significant firepower — has seen consolidation and acquisition activity accelerate. Large pharmaceutical companies increasingly view rare disease platforms as strategic assets, paying premiums for companies with FDA orphan drug designations and clear paths to approval. Sarepta Therapeutics' acquisition spree, BioMarin's growth trajectory, and Vertex's $4.9 billion purchase of Alpine Immune Sciences all signal that big pharma is willing to pay for validated science in underserved patient populations.

Jeito's raise comes at a moment when European venture capital broadly is contracting, but life sciences is proving more resilient than software or consumer tech. According to Dealroom data, European venture funding fell 35% year-over-year in 2025, but healthcare and biotech dropped only 18% — a meaningful outperformance driven by continued institutional and corporate appetite for breakthrough science.

European healthcare venture funds raised roughly €3.2 billion in 2025, down from €4.1 billion in 2024 but still above the €2.8 billion annual average from 2018-2020. Jeito's €1 billion close accounts for nearly one-third of last year's total European healthcare fundraising — a concentration that underscores how difficult it's become for smaller, emerging managers to raise institutional capital at scale.

The competitive set for Jeito includes established European healthcare investors like Sofinnova Partners, Forbion, and Medicxi, all of which have raised €500 million+ funds in recent years. Jeito's differentiation appears to hinge on its operational model: the firm employs a team of former pharma executives, clinicians, and regulatory specialists who work directly with portfolio companies on trial design, regulatory strategy, and partnership development. That's not unique in healthcare venture, but it's rarer in Europe than in the U.S., where firms like Atlas Venture and Third Rock have long embedded operational support into their investment models.

Another factor working in Jeito's favor: European biotech valuations remain compressed relative to U.S. peers, even as clinical and regulatory pathways converge. A Series B oncology company in France might raise at a $150-200 million post-money valuation, while a comparable U.S. company commands $250-350 million. For funds willing to navigate European markets, that arbitrage creates entry-point advantages — assuming the science executes and exits materialize through acquisition or eventual IPO.

But there's a catch. European biotech exits remain thin. The continent hasn't produced a meaningful IPO market for life sciences since 2021, and most liquidity comes through M&A to U.S. or global pharma. That makes LP underwriting harder: without a public exit path, investors are betting on strategic acquisition as the primary liquidity event, which compresses return distributions and limits the potential for outlier outcomes.

The biotech IPO market has been functionally closed since Q4 2021, with only a handful of U.S.-listed offerings pricing above $100 million in 2024 and 2025 combined. European biotech IPOs are even rarer — Euronext and London's Main Market saw zero healthcare venture-backed listings above $50 million in 2025. That means portfolio companies either need to reach profitability and self-sustain (rare in biotech) or position for acquisition by pharma or larger biotechs.

M&A activity has picked up slack, but at lower valuations than peak 2020-2021 levels. The median acquisition price for European clinical-stage biotechs in 2025 was roughly €280 million, down from €450 million in 2021, according to Silicon Canals data. For venture funds, that compression means needing to invest at lower entry multiples and drive operational value to hit target returns — exactly the model Jeito is built around.

A €1 billion fund targeting venture-style returns typically needs to return €3-4 billion gross to LPs to hit a 3-4x MOIC — the benchmark for top-quartile performance in healthcare venture. Assuming a 15-20 company portfolio, that means Jeito needs 3-5 companies to become €500 million+ outcomes, with at least one €1 billion+ exit to anchor the fund's performance.

In healthcare venture, that math is harder than it sounds. Unlike software, where companies can scale revenues quickly and exit at high revenue multiples, biotech outcomes are binary: either the science works and the company gets acquired or goes public at a meaningful valuation, or clinical trials fail and the investment writes to zero. Portfolio construction becomes critical — Jeito needs enough shots on goal to absorb failures while concentrating capital into winners.

The fund's 10-year lifecycle also matters. Biotech companies take 8-12 years from seed funding to exit, which means Fund II vintage 2026 likely won't see meaningful distributions until 2032-2034. For LPs, that's a long lock-up, but it also aligns with the patient capital thesis that institutions like Swiss Life are building around healthcare innovation.

Jeito plans to deploy Fund II over 3-4 years, targeting 15-20 platform investments with initial checks ranging from €30-80 million. The firm says it will reserve 50-60% of the fund for follow-on investments — a reserve ratio that's higher than typical venture funds but standard in healthcare, where companies often require multiple financing rounds before reaching inflection points.

The deployment pace suggests Jeito will make 4-6 new investments per year through 2029, focusing on companies that have demonstrated early clinical signals or platform validation but need capital to advance through Phase 2 or Phase 3 trials. That cadence also allows the firm to be selective, passing on early-stage science that hasn't yet de-risked and concentrating capital into companies with clearer paths to value creation.

One thing Jeito hasn't disclosed: whether it will raise continuation vehicles or co-investment SPVs for breakout portfolio companies. Several U.S. healthcare venture funds have started using continuation funds to extend hold periods for high-performing assets, allowing them to capture upside through clinical milestones or FDA approvals that occur beyond the main fund's lifecycle. If Jeito follows that playbook, it would signal confidence in the portfolio's potential but also create potential LP friction around valuation and liquidity timing.

The firm also hasn't said whether it will pursue a Fund III in the future, but at €1 billion in Fund II, it's hard to see where the next fund goes from here. A Fund III in the €1.5-2 billion range would push Jeito into mega-fund territory, requiring a different LP base and likely a broader mandate. More likely, the firm will focus on deploying Fund II well, demonstrating exits and realized returns, and then return to market in 4-5 years at a similar or modestly larger scale.

Jeito's raise is a data point in a broader question: can European healthcare venture funds compete with U.S. peers at scale? For years, the answer has been no. U.S. funds benefit from deeper capital markets, a more robust IPO ecosystem, and proximity to the world's largest pharmaceutical companies. European funds have historically been smaller, more fragmented, and reliant on cross-border M&A for exits.

But the gap is narrowing. European institutions are allocating more aggressively to private markets, regulatory pathways are converging (EMA and FDA often run parallel review processes), and the science itself is increasingly borderless. Jeito's ability to raise €1 billion with a Swiss institutional anchor suggests that European healthcare venture is maturing into an asset class that can command institutional capital at scale — not just as a diversification play, but as a core allocation.

The real test comes in 5-7 years, when Fund II's portfolio companies start hitting clinical milestones and exit windows open. If Jeito can demonstrate top-quartile returns from a €1 billion fund, it will validate the thesis that European healthcare venture can operate at scale and deliver venture-style outcomes. If the portfolio underperforms or exits come at compressed valuations, it will reinforce the skepticism that life sciences venture works best in the U.S. ecosystem.

For now, the firm has the capital and the backing to make the bet. Whether the science — and the exits — follow is the story we'll be tracking for the next decade.

First investments from Fund II, likely announced in Q2 or Q3 2026. Where Jeito deploys first will signal whether it's tilting more toward rare diseases, oncology, or platform technologies — and whether it's favoring European or U.S. companies out of the gate.

Portfolio company clinical milestones from Fund I. Jeito hasn't disclosed exits yet, but if Fund I companies start hitting Phase 3 readouts or partnership deals in 2026-2027, that will build momentum for Fund II's deployment and validate the investment thesis to LPs.

Whether other European healthcare funds can raise at similar scale. If Jeito is an outlier, it suggests the firm has differentiated LP access or track record that competitors lack. If Sofinnova, Forbion, or others follow with €800 million+ raises, it signals a broader shift in institutional appetite for European life sciences venture.

And finally: the IPO window. If biotech IPOs return in 2027-2028, European companies could finally access public market liquidity at scale, unlocking a new exit path for funds like Jeito. If the IPO drought continues, M&A remains the only game — and that compresses returns, limits upside, and makes venture-style outcomes harder to achieve. That's the variable no fund can control, but every healthcare GP is watching.