Khanu Fondsverwaltung GmbH (Khanu), a fund management team from Dortmund, Germany, focusing on drug discovery, announces the first closing of the capital raising for KHAN Technology Transfer Fund II GmbH & Co KG (KHAN-II), the successor fund to KHAN-I (vintage 2019). The Max-Planck-Förderstiftung from Germany is also involved.
As limited partners of KHAN-II, the European Investment Fund (EIF, Luxembourg), Akros Pharma Inc. (USA), the Max Planck Foundation (Germany), the Thyssen’sche Handelsgesellschaft (Germany), and KHAN-II Vermögensverwaltung committed in a first closing to invest a total of EUR 51 million for early-stage drug discovery investments. Khanu was established as general partner.
Assets will be sourced predominantly from academia in Germany (such as Max Planck Institutes, among others) and Europe, focusing on innovative therapeutic opportunities in indications with high unmet medical need.
Project investments will be made and executed at the Lead Discovery Center GmbH, Dortmund (LDC), a professional drug discovery and translational research incubator with a proven track record. KHAN-II will also invest opportunistically into early-stage companies and spin-offs, providing structuring of the founding process if needed.
Very significantly – and building on the preferred partnership with the Max Planck Society (MPG), Germany’s largest basic research organisation – KHAN-II has signed a co-investment agreement with MPG, adding EUR 18 million of co-funding for drug discovery projects originating from the world-class biomedical research of the Max Planck Institutes.
An additional closing is planned this year to target a total of 100 million Euro.