Gamma Capital closes on second fund

Austrian VC house Gamma Capital Partners (GCP) has announced a final close on its second fund at €17.25m. Gamma II, which is currently 40% invested, launched in October 2002 and reached first close on €10m. It has an original target of €25m.

Dr Oliver Grabherr, managing partner and co-founder of GCP, said: “Fund raising was outstandingly hard in 2003 for early stage venture in Austria, one would call it anticyclical fund raising I suppose. Therefore we are very glad that we reached a considerable uptick on our funding volume, which brought us 70% more capital than in the first close.”

GCP invests in ICT, physical sciences and life sciences at the venture stage. The firm targets companies in Austria, Switzerland and Southern Germany (Bavaria, Baden-Wurttemberg) and makes investments of between €500,000 and €2m.

Investors in the fund include Investkredit Bank AG, RaiffeisenLandesbank Oberosterreich and ISK Added Funds, APK Pensionskasse AG, and Sparkasse Schwaz.

So far six investments have been made in Gamma II, five of which are co-investments between Gamma II and the firm’s first fund, ilab24. The investments are CNSystems, Igeneon, Netragon, rzw cimdata, GAT Formulation and Identec Solutions.

GCP was formed in 2002 by Grabherr, Hannes Ambacher and Klaus Matzka to take over the management of VC incubator ilab24. The vehicle was repositioned as a generalist technology VC fund.Ilab24 has a 2000 vintage as an incubator and a 2002 vintage as a VC. It has commitments of €20.4m and is 55% invested. Investments so far include ArtiBrain, Tiani Medgraph, Igeneon, Netragon, rzw cimdata, GAT Formulation, Identec Solutions. Write-offs from the old incubation portfolio, i.e. before GCP management, include Ocean24, billbyclick, Asset Media and peyote.