Renovo float

Renovo Group, a biopharmaceutical company that received seed funding from Atlas Ventures six years ago, has floated on the London Stock Exchange. The offer price of 87 pence per share saw the business raise approximately £50m, £10m more than was anticipated due to the high demand among investors leaving the IPO oversubscribed. The company achieved at float a market capitalisation of £154m. Renovo, which specialises in developing drugs to prevent and reduce scarring in the skin and other parts of the body, will primarily use the money raised to commercialise the development of its two main products, Juvista and Zesteem.

Renovo traces its roots back to Manchester University, where, in 2000, Professor Mark Ferguson spun the company out with seed funding from Atlas Ventures based on his research into scarring. A number of other VCs were encouraged to get involved, including BioVeda Capital Private, Care Capital, JP Morgan Partners, HealthCap IV and Temasek Holdings Pte, and now Renovo has two programmes in late stage development, a further two at early stage, and another 15 or so in preclinical development. All of the venture shareholders are subject to a six-month lock in.