Asabys Partners Research
Investment Thesis
Asabys Partners is a Barcelona-based venture capital firm dedicated exclusively to healthcare and life-sciences innovation. Founded in 2018 by Josep Ll. Sanfeliu and Clara Campàs, the firm's stated mission is "fostering breakthrough innovation in healthcare." Asabys describes its approach around three pillars: impact (pushing the boundaries of science and medicine to improve patients' lives), disruption (seeking highly innovative and transformative technologies rather than incremental ones), and hands-on partnership (positioning itself as a collaborator to portfolio companies rather than a passive check-writer). The firm is backed by Alantra, with Banco Sabadell as an anchor investor, and has been selected as a fund manager under Spain's CDTI/EIF Innvierte Deep Start initiative, part of the National Deep Tech Strategy 2026-2030.
Sector Focus
Asabys invests across the full healthcare spectrum, with three core sub-sectors:
- Biopharma (oncology, CNS, immunology, women's health, fibrotic disease)
- Medical technology / medical devices (neurostimulation, diagnostics, thrombectomy systems)
- Digital health (AI-based triage, extended reality therapeutics, elder home care)
The firm has a particular focus on academic and institutional spin-outs, having helped launch companies out of IRB Barcelona, the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG), ICN2, and Vall d'Hebron Institute of Oncology (VHIO). Its newest fund vertical, Asabys Innvierte Tech Transfer FCRE, is explicitly built around technology transfer and company creation from Spanish research institutions, targeting disruptive technologies such as AI, supercomputing, synthetic biology, new materials, and novel therapeutic modalities.
Stage Focus
Asabys invests across the company lifecycle, from pre-seed technology-transfer spin-outs through growth-stage financings. Historically the firm concentrated on seed and Series A biotech/medtech rounds, but its 2025 integration of Aliath Bioventures (formerly Alta Life Sciences) extended its reach into later-stage, growth-stage healthcare investing, with an explicit ambition to "cover the full healthcare spectrum and development stage, accompanying companies from inception to growth."
Check Size
Public check-size figures are not disclosed on the website. Based on observed round participation, checks appear to range from roughly $0.5M for early spin-out seed rounds up to co-lead positions of $10-15M+ in growth-stage Series B/C rounds (e.g., participation in Ona Therapeutics' $86.6M Series B and Deepull's €50M Series C).
Lead Tendency
Mixed. Asabys has explicitly led rounds (e.g., XRHealth's $6M raise, "Funding Led By Asabys Partners") and co-led others, but many recent large rounds (Ona Therapeutics Series B, iPremom seed) were led by outside investors (Mérieux Equity Partners, Columbus Venture Partners, Amadeus Capital Partners) with Asabys participating as an existing or syndicate investor.
Recent Activity
Asabys has been highly active through 2025-2026:
- September 2026: iPremom raised a €15M seed round for molecular pregnancy-complication diagnostics (led by Amadeus Capital Partners).
- June 2026: Oriva Therapeutics (an Asabys-backed women's health spin-out) appointed Dr Agnès Arbat as CEO.
- June 2026: Ona Therapeutics raised an oversubscribed $86.6M Series B for its antibody-drug conjugate pipeline.
- May 2026: Asabys launched a new life-sciences fund of up to €120M (Asabys Innvierte Tech Transfer FCRE) after being selected into the CDTI/EIF Innvierte Deep Start initiative; the same initiative brought €74.7M in combined CDTI/EIF capital into the vehicle.
- February 2026: Oriva Therapeutics launched publicly with Asabys backing.
- October 2025: Asabys integrated Aliath Bioventures (formerly Alta Life Sciences) in partnership with AltamarCAM Partners, growing combined AUM from roughly $351M to over $468M, with an explicit target of exceeding €1B in AUM by 2030.
- 2025: Portfolio companies Deepull (€50M Series C), Qida (€37M, Spain's largest eldercare round), and Anaconda Biomed (€20M round) all closed significant financings.
- August 2026: Portfolio company Accure Therapeutics signed an asset purchase agreement with Oculis for its lead CNS asset.
Fund status: actively deploying, with a newly launched fund vertical and a September 2026 investment as the most recent disclosed activity.
Portfolio Highlights
Asabys' portfolio spans 20+ active companies across biopharma (Ona Therapeutics, Agomab Therapeutics, Augustine Therapeutics, Nuage Therapeutics, ALLOX, Orikine Bio, Peptomyc, Splice Bio, Oriva Therapeutics), medtech (Anaconda Biomed, Gradient Denervation Technologies, SafeHeal, Medasense, Binx Health, Inbiomotion), and digital health (Mediktor, Quibim, Qida, Sidekick, XRHealth/Amelia). Notable exits include Origo Biopharma (acquired by Agomab Therapeutics, 2021) and the 2026 asset sale by Accure Therapeutics to Oculis. Portfolio companies have also attracted major downstream co-investors, including Sofinnova Partners, Ysios Capital, Mérieux Equity Partners, Columbus Venture Partners, Wellington Partners, and the CDTI/EIF.
Team
- Josep Ll. Sanfeliu — Co-founder and Managing Partner
- Clara Campàs, PhD — Co-founder and Managing Partner; serves on the boards of Ona Therapeutics, Nuage Therapeutics, ALLOX, and Augustine Therapeutics
- Sylvain Sachot — Partner
- Guillem Masferrer — Partner
- Montse Vendrell — Partner; co-leads the new Innvierte Tech Transfer fund
- Jose María Fernández — Partner
- Emilio Erazo-Fischer — Operating Partner; co-leads the new Innvierte Tech Transfer fund
- Núria Aloy — CFO
- Maite Malet — Principal
- Isabel Jimenez — Principal
- Antonio Limatola, Anna Bellmunt, Beatriz Gandarias — Senior Associates
- Pilar Almajano — Financial Controller
- Mònica Sabé, Laia Romero — Executive Assistants / Office Management
The team totals roughly 18 professionals, expected to grow to 20.
Decision Process
Partnership-based investment committee, with managing partners Sanfeliu and Campàs at the core and dedicated partners (including a 3-partner team for the new tech-transfer fund) leading specific fund verticals.
Founder Preferences
Asabys gravitates toward scientific founders and academic spin-out teams, frequently co-founding or seeding companies alongside research institutions (IRB Barcelona, CRG, ICN2, VHIO) rather than only backing already-formed teams. It favors highly innovative, technically differentiated science over incremental improvements, and is comfortable providing first institutional capital to spin-outs at company-creation stage.
Geographic Focus
Primarily Spain (Barcelona is the firm's home base and a major source of academic spin-outs) and broader Europe (Belgium, France, Iceland), with selective international exposure through portfolio companies headquartered in Israel (Medasense, XRHealth) and the US.