EnginZyme Selected for Cleantech Group's 100 List of Companies Committed to Taking Action on the Climate Crisis

Meiogenix Announces $13 Million Series A Financing Round Led by Sofinnova Partners

DMC Announces First Close of Series B Financing, Raising $34 million

Sofinnova Partners congratulates portfolio company DNA Script for the success of its €142M ($165M) Oversubscribed Series C Fundraise

AFYREN lists on Euronext Growth Paris

Micropep Raises EUR 8.5M (USD 10M) in oversubscribed Series A Financing to develop innovative small peptide solutions for agriculture

Industrial Biotech

Afyren

Biosyntia 

Biotalys 

CelluComp

Comet Biorefining

DMC Biotechnologies

DNA Script

EnginZyme

Meiogenix

MetGen

Micropep Technologies

Microphyt

Protera

Pyrowave 

Crossover

Synthace

Joško Bobanović

Sustainability
+ Impact

Our Industrial Biotech Strategy seeks early-stage investments that will have a positive impact on sustainability in the chemicals, agriculture, food and materials sectors. 

Michael Krel

Guillaume Baxter

Denis Lucquin

Guillaume is a principal at Sofinnova Partners. He joined us in 2017 to support our investments in the industrial biotechnology and renewable chemistry sectors.

He started his career in the chemical industry, spending several years in Brussels at Solvay, to develop disruptive technologies for sustainable energies and advanced materials through partnerships between start-ups, research institutes and in-house R&D teams. Then, he joined Solvay Ventures as Investment Manager to work even more closely with entrepreneurs.

Guillaume believes the Sofinnova Partners Industrial Biotech team’s scientific expertise is a big factor in its success. "When someone has some synthetic biology technology, and they want to create a company, not many VC investors are able to go deep with them,” he said, adding that people who know the sector would say: “if you want to find a deeptech investor, able to make some strong impact and help you make progress in industrial biotech — Sofinnova is it."

Guillaume holds Master’s Degrees in Genetics-Immunology (Université Paris Descartes) and in Industrial Biotechnology (Université de Technologie de Compiègne/AgroParisTech). He also holds degrees in Innovation Management (UTC/NEOMA business school) completed by an executive education at Louvain School of Management (Belgium).

Anna, a junior analyst with the Industrial Biotech strategy, joined us in 2020.

Previously she worked as an analyst in the innovation department of the EFKO Group, one of the top three Russian food industry groups, where she covered the FoodTech and AgriTech sectors. Prior to that, she was an analyst in the Seeds Department at Bayer Crop Science CIS.

Initially graduating as an invertebrate zoologist, Anna has always valued diversity and sustainability. Her tenacity and curiosity were encouraged by a saying from her professors: “The worm is so long, and life is so short,” which Anna finds applicable to any project.

She holds a B.Sc. in Biology from Moscow State University, and an M.Sc. in Biomedical Science from Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology.

Joško Bobanović joined us in 2010 as a partner focused on the industrial biotech strategy. He works on early stage deals in Europe and North America with applications in chemicals, agriculture, food, and materials. Prior to joining Sofinnova Partners, he was part of the investment team at iNovia Capital in Montreal, Canada.

Joško sits on the boards of Metgen, Comet Bio, DNA Script, Biosyntia, DMC Biotechnologies, Pyrowave and Protera Biosciences. Before going into venture capital, he created an internet startup and a software company.

, which helps entrepreneurs in software, data analytics, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. Joško goes straight to the point when discussing what he looks for in founders: “Personal integrity, drive and ambition, no nonsense.” His recurring nugget of wisdom? “Sales solve everything — if nobody is willing to buy, it’s a hobby.”

Driven by curiosity, Joško appreciates Sofinnova Partners’ global ambition and enjoys the mix of technology, innovation and finance that defines his job. For fun, he enjoys cooking great food, travel and basketball.


Anouck joined us in 2021. She looks for industrial biotechnology investments in Europe and North America, covering the chemical, materials, agriculture and food sectors. Her particular focus is on sustainability.

Prior to joining Sofinnova, Anouck co-founded XL Batteries, a New York startup developing redox flow batteries for grid scale energy storage. She served as CTO.

Anouck got into venture capital because she enjoys “digging into the science behind the innovations and interacting with entrepreneurs who have drive and creative ideas,” she said. “I am passionate about science and catalyzing the transformation of scientific innovations and technologies into impactful products.” She is a member of the Global Women in VC Community.

Anouck holds a Ph.D. in chemistry from Columbia University, where she specialized in inorganic molecular clusters and solid-state materials with tunable electronic properties. Her Ph.D. work was 

 on the cover of Scientific American’s 2016 World Changing Ideas issue. At Columbia, she received the Louis Hammett Award for Excellence in Chemical Research, awarded to the top Ph.D. student in their final year.

Anouck was a post-baccalaureate research fellow at the Molecular Foundry at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, where she studied the synthesis and self assembly of sequence-defined, bio-inspired polymers. She got her Bachelor of Science degree in chemistry from UC Berkeley.

Denis has been a key member of the team since he joined Sofinnova Partners in 1991. He's currently a partner and senior advisor, and was Chairman until 2017 and Managing Partner until 2021.  As a life sciences investor, he specializes in industrial biotechnology.

Denis’ recent industrial biotechnology investments include BioAmber, Avantium and Biotalys (which went public respectively on NYSE, Euronext Amsterdam and Euronext Brussels) as well as Green Biologics, Microphyt and Micropep. He acts or has acted as a board member for all these companies.

His advice for managers? “You need to hire people who are better than you are.”

Denis began his career in academic research. For five years, he was in charge of the technology transfer department at the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique (INRA), France’s agricultural research institute. In 1997, he founded the French biotech entrepreneurs' association, France Biotech.

During his first 17 years at Sofinnova Partners, Denis carried out many investments in health care such as Nicox, Oxford Glycosciences, Oxford Molecular, PPL Therapeutics, Conjuchem, Exonhit, IDM, Innate Pharma, Ablynx, Cerenis, and Noxxon (all of which successfully went public) as well as Novexel (sold to AstraZeneca), and Crop Design (sold to BASF Crop Sciences).  He joined the venture capital industry as director of investments at Innolion (Crédit Lyonnais) in 1989.

Denis is a graduate in engineering from Ecole Polytechnique and the École du Génie Rural des Eaux et Forêts. He has a degree in Innovation Management from the Université de Paris-Dauphine.

Michael joined us in 2013 and is a partner in the Sofinnova Industrial Biotechnology Fund.

His primary focus is on identifying early-stage deals in Europe and North America with applications ranging from chemicals, materials, agriculture, food, feed, and synthetic biology.

The IB Fund’s contribution to sustainability is important to him.

“I have three young kids, and I don’t want to end up 25 years from now with a difficult question about, you know, why didn’t I do anything to solve climate change,” he said. He added that investing in companies that are all part of a movement toward sustainability and lower carbon emissions “is the way for me to address that very personal issue.”

Michael is or has been on the board of directors of several companies including EnobraQ, Afyren, and EnginZyme, and is an observer on Comet Bio’s board. He served for 2 years as the CEO of EnobraQ, a Sofinnova Partners’ Green Seed Fund portfolio company.

He looks for founders with the ability to roll with the punches. “Founders need to have force, to be able to move mountains and stay resilient when things are not easy,” he says. “Creativity and charisma are important, of course, but resilience is a very key feature.”

Michael came to biotech and venture capital via science and consulting. He finds it satisfying to retain the “positiveness of going into deep science,” yet “still being able to see a lot of different things and have an impact on a business,” helping its executives “craft their strategy and their path forward.”

Before joining Sofinnova, Michael spent six years in industrial biotech start-ups, in senior business development roles.  He also worked in a consulting firm advising on strategic R&D and organizational issues.

Michael is an engineer who graduated from Ecole Polytechnique in Paris and holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from Paris X Orsay University.

Close	Fund	AMT
2012	Sofinnova Green Seed Fund	€22.5 million
2017	Sofinnova IB I	€125 million

TheTeam