Innovation, Investments, Impact: A Look Back at HTGF’s Biotech Year 2024

To reflect on an extraordinary year in biotech, we sat down with investment professionals Dr. Laura Pedroza, Dr. Frank Hensel, and Dr. Angelika Vlachou from our Life Sciences team. 2024 was a year of major funding rounds and a billion-dollar exit within the HTGF portfolio. At the same time, declining investment appetite in early-stage funding remains a challenge. There were also important political and structural developments. Dr. Angelika Vlachou provides insights into key funding initiatives designed to strengthen Germany as an innovation hub and drive forward groundbreaking technologies like gene and cell therapies.

 
What developments shaped the biotech sector in Germany and Europe in 2024?

Dr. Frank Hensel: 2024 was a strong year for the biotech sector. We saw several major funding rounds, including Catalym and ITM. This trend is also reflected in our HTGF portfolio. In total, more than €800 million in follow-on financing was secured for life sciences startups, particularly through large rounds at Tubulis, Alentis, and SciRhom. It was an absolute record year.

A key factor in this success was the fundraising of large life sciences funds. Our early investments in innovative science and strong founding teams are now paying off. The entire biotech ecosystem is maturing, and more and more companies with solid pipelines are reaching clinical development stages. As a result, they are becoming increasingly attractive to both European and U.S. funds.

Whereas securing follow-on funding used to be a major challenge, we now see a real opportunity to build European champions. This is also supported by the HTGF Opportunity growth fund, launched last year, which aims to provide financial support to selected portfolio companies in later-stage rounds.

Dr. Laura Pedroza: At the same time, we are seeing a countertrend: more and more funds are pulling out of early-stage financing, making pre-seed and seed funding more challenging. Especially financing rounds in the high single-digit million range, which significantly “de-risk” the assets, have become harder to secure.

Since these early-stage companies are the champions of tomorrow, HTGF’s support at this stage lays a solid foundation for the entire market. In 2024, we were involved in about half of all seed funding rounds in Germany!

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Important Initiatives from Germany – Insights from Dr. Angelika Vlachou

Biotechnology is one of the key future technologies playing a central role in Germany. Dr. Angelika Vlachou provides an overview of major initiatives driving progress in areas such as gene and cell therapy, as well as startup support—ranging from GoBio to other significant programs in the field of gene and cell therapies.

In 2024, the German biotech sector secured almost twice as much funding as in the previous year. This year was unique: the VC landscape was characterized by a few exceptionally large financing rounds, while the overall number of rounds—particularly in early-stage funding before Series A—declined, making it increasingly challenging to secure investments. This trend is also reflected in our portfolio.

Beyond groundbreaking innovations and investor capital, building successful companies requires founders with a strong entrepreneurial mindset, professional tech transfer, and experienced managers. Bringing these elements together and fostering their collaboration is essential to turning excellent science into commercial success. Germany has world-class research—but to transform more of it into thriving startups, there is still untapped potential.

A targeted technology-transfer strategy and a forward-looking approach to translation lay the foundation for later market success.
Germany has several outstanding biotech clusters. A key task now is to better connect them and transform them into a powerful European hub and a dynamic startup ecosystem. The relaunch of Go-Bio is a welcome development, as it helps translate ideas from fundamental life sciences research into practical applications. Since last year, Genenovate has been Germany’s first nationwide entrepreneurship program designed to specifically prepare scientists in the field of gene and cell therapies for their role as entrepreneurs. We need more initiatives like this

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What long-term trends and developments have emerged?

Dr. Frank Hensel: Antibody-drug conjugates (ADCs) remain a strong trend. We already had a successful exit with Emergence, and with Tubulis and Alentis, we have key players in our portfolio.

Another central theme in 2024 was immunology. Our early investment in SciRhom back in 2016 is now paying off— the company now has the financial resources to demonstrate efficacy in clinical trials. This clearly shows the strategic value of a diversified portfolio—both in terms of indications and modalities.

Dr. Laura Pedroza: We are also seeing enormous interest in AI-driven solutions. A standout example is the financing round of Aignostics —a flagship project in AI-powered digital pathology with roots inCharité. AI is increasingly establishing itself as a valuable tool in biotech, opening up new possibilities for target discovery and asset development.

Looking at the HTGF portfolio, 2024 saw a billion-dollar exit as well as significant new investments. What made this year special?

Dr. Frank Hensel: Beyond the large funding rounds, the exit of Cardior was, of course, a major highlight for us. Having a second unicorn in the life sciences sector makes us incredibly proud and is a testament to the strength of Germany’s research landscape and the quality of our outstanding founding teams.

Dr. Laura Pedroza: On the new investment side, we backed companies like Umlaut, TQ, Refoxy, TecRegen, and SRTD. We are specifically focusing on n new modalities and biology with high risk but also high potential.
 
 

How has collaboration within the biotech community evolved?

Dr. Laura Pedroza: Strong networking is essential. HTGF and its early-stage consortium partners have successfully engaged not only major European but also U.S. funds. We are also seeing more pan-European teams, which are helping to bring the biotech community even closer together.
 

What advice would you give to aspiring biotech founders?

Dr. Frank Hensel: For founding teams, early engagement with key stakeholders—such as pharmaceutical companies and VC investors—is crucial. We get involved as early as the pre-seed stage by working with tech transfer offices, universities, and research institutes. Our goal is to optimally prepare teams even before they officially launch their startups. Our message is clear: HTGF remains deeply connected to Germany’s strong research ecosystem and supports the transition from cutting-edge science to innovative startups.