“The life sciences industry continues to have enormous potential.”
Platform Life Sciences: Mr. Mrachacz, what role does Bayern Kapital play in the German VC ecosystem?
Markus Mrachacz: As a public anchor investor with more than 30 years of investment experience, Bayern Kapital provides end-to-end financing throughout a company’s entire growth trajectory and across all investment phases. In many cases, we invest in promising companies at a very early stage and remain on board as a long-term, strategic partner, from the pre-seed phase through to the scale-up phase. In addition, we always invest in close cooperation with business angels and private co-investors such as family offices, venture capital firms, and corporate venture capital firms—thereby mobilizing additional private capital for our portfolio companies. Of course, our portfolio companies benefit from this broad partner network beyond just long-term financial security—for example, through advisory services based on many years of experience across various industries. To date, we have financed more than 390 companies with our holistic approach—including several German unicorns such as Quantum Systems, IQM, and EGYM.
From Bayern Kapital’s perspective and experience: Where do the major opportunities and challenges currently lie when investing in industries such as life sciences?
Life sciences is one of the sectors that continues to offer enormous potential, both in terms of return on investment and the creation of skilled, future-proof jobs. However, life sciences is also a sector with long development cycles that requires consistent and substantial investment from the very beginning and throughout all stages of a company’s life cycle, particularly during the critical early years of founding and growth. The number of investors with industry experience who are willing to see these projects through to the end is limited in Europe. To secure sufficient venture capital, many founders therefore have no choice but to turn to international investors—with the result that expertise, patents, and jobs may potentially migrate abroad, allowing those countries to secure market share in future-oriented industries more quickly and earlier. Or the startup may not even get off the ground.
Is that why the Free State of Bavaria launched a new Growth and Scale-Up Fund with a volume of 500 million EUR last year?
Yes, exactly. This new fund is intended to help close this financing gap for startups and scale-ups in Bavaria. The “Bavarian Growth and Scale-Up Fund” was launched in the fall of 2025 by the Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs as part of the “VC4Startups Initiative Bavaria” and is managed by Bayern Kapital. With this fund, Bayern Kapital is now able to invest up to 50 million EUR in a single company and can thus also cover the capital-intensive later-stage and expansion financing rounds for which many companies have previously had to rely on international investors. In doing so, the Free State of Bavaria aims to send a clear signal—both to emerging companies in capital-intensive industries and to private investors and the international market—that Bavaria is investing in promising high-tech and deep-tech companies, thereby remaining a hub for future technologies.
Mr. Mrachacz, thank you very much for the interesting conversation!
The interview was conducted by Urs Moesenfechtel.