Ethias, life and non-life insurer, commits to a relationship which is mutually advantageous with its partners of public sector and its agents, with companies and with private individuals who trust it.
It commits to providing them first-rated products and services with the best quality-price ratio in order to guarantee sustainable profitability in accordance with its fundamental values of humanism, ethical, commitment and proximity.
Integrale is a company created in 1925 and specialized in life insurance management of 2nd and 3rd pillar.
This mutual insurance fund has main characteristics:
Noshaq is an investment fund and project developer with a portfolio of 469 companies. Noshaq is the reference financial partner for the creation and development of SMEs in the Liege region.
Over the years, Noshaq has developed a variety of financing vehicles, which are fully in line with market needs and trends, as well as its strategy. All services offered by Noshaq are always designed according to the needs and requirements of the client investor. The goal is to ensure that, at all times, we have a lever effect on the development of his business.
SFPI-FPIM is a private company of public interest with the Belgian Federal State as sole shareholder. Its main mission is to promote public economic initiative, to support private companies contributing to economical policy of the Belgian State and to provide advices to Federal Government. To achieve this mission, it manages its investments and shareholdings through a close relation with the management and the other stakeholders and through a strong representation in the Boards of directors.
As public shareholder, SFPI-FPIM must always find a right balance between financial constraints and societal goals in the medium and long term (patient capital).
Active since 1982, a branch office of BNP Paribas Fortis is entirely dedicated to private equity transactions.
BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity takes minority equity positions in and provides mezzanine financing to medium-sized companies with a motivated and experienced management team, a strong market position and attractive growth potential. BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity may also work alongside other co-investors to jointly acquire a majority stake, for instance in a buy-out.
The link with the BNP Paribas Group also enables companies to benefit from a broad international network and a large range of financial products and services.
Épimède capital is a private fund (PRICAF under Belgian law). It aims to invest in private capital, non-listed, of high-growth technological SMEs. Our strategy focuses on promising companies in early stage phase whose growth potential is demonstrated or in effective growth. Funds raised have to be invested in priority in the financing of growth accelaration.
We give priority to partners we can bring a real added-value in terms of growth support. As such, Épimède will play an active role within the Board of Directors of the target company and will take part in the control of key, strategic decisions.
The amounts raised from Épimède have to be mainly attributed to the subscribtion of new equity.
We are supporting the best and most ambitious entrepreneurs. The Épimède team has a strong experience in terms of strategy and business development of a technological nature. His passion is to work with entrepreneurs Épimède is partnering with in order to build a coherent business vision with an ambitious growth strategy, realistic and in line with means.
Our support is based on solid expert and experience but also on a well-developed network of contacts. This support will potentially be useful to help our entrepreneurs to refine their strategy related to key activities, product positioning, services, production, financing, marketing, recruitment, intellectual property management and internationalization.
Our approach is based on a constructive dialogue and positive challenge.
The governance of Epimède is organized around 3 main axes:
Marc Moles le Bailly has a Master degree in Economic Sciences of ULB. He has been responsible for asset management at AGF before joining the "Caisse Privée Banque" as responsible for the research unit. Then, he joined the Nagelmackers Bank in 1996 at the head of the Asset Management and Private Banking.
Since 2007, he is the executive director of the Belgian entity of the Edmond de Rothschild Group (Europe).
Patrice Beaupain has a degree in financial analysis at Brussels' CIAF, EFFAS certified financial analyst and chartered accountant of Liège and at the Belgian Chamber of Chartered Accountants, he holds the position of Financial Direction and Human Resources of Integrale, since 1993.
He is also administrator in different real estate subsidiaries but also advisor of Integrale Luxembourg.
Albert Corhay is the rector of the University of Liège since 2014. He is holder of Master/Bachelor's degree in Business Management of the University of Liège as well as a Ph.D. (financial economics of the University of Cambridge (U.K.). He has been Head of Faculty of the management department at ULg during 4 years.
EIn 2005, he was elected vice-rector of the University of Liège, he was holding this position until 2014.
Alain Delatte is commercial engineer from HEC-Liège. He holds the position of Finance Manager at Ethias S.A.
François Fontaine has a master in Law and in Tax Law. After having worked at the Belgian Parliament and within federal and regional ministerial cabinets, he joined the SFPI in 2009 to act as a general advisor. In addition to management of financial assets and participations that SFPI has in the medical and biotech sectors, he deals with subjects that are related to energy, water, real estate and waste treatment.
He is administrator in different companies or investment funds.
Gaëtan Servais holds a Master's degree of Economic Sciences of the University of Liège. He shows a particular interest in economy, econometrics and business. His skills in economy contribute to development cooperation missions for several reputed institutions. Then, he has been called up at the heart of several ministerial cabinets in which he quickly has been in charge of challenging projects. He is now in charge of the General Management of Meusinvest's public investment fund, which supports financially more than 330 companies. At the same time as this mission, he is Manager in different companies.
Great enthusiast of the arts and popular culture, he is also President of the music festival "Les Ardentes" and Manager of the Music Board. His involvement is a heart choice too.
Raf Moons has a PhD in physics from the University of Leuven. He also holds an MBA ( Vlerick - KU Leuven). After his research assistant career at KU Leuven, he started at Imec as business development manager.
In 1999 he joined VIV, the venture capital fund associated to Generale Bank. He is currently investment director of BNP Paribas Fortis Private Equity where he is among others responsible for the portfolio management of investment funds for university spin-off.
Marc Foidart holds a Master in Management Studies from the University of Liège. He started his carrier as a project manager within Arcelor group before moving towards SEED (which became Cide-Socran) since its creation. Then, he becomes top manager at Meusinvest. At the same time, he got involved in several transactions type buyout on behalf of active companies in the Life Sciences' sector.
He has a substantial experience in developing investment for technological start-ups, especially in the Life Sciences' sector.
Philippe Degeer (Engineer Gramme and MBA London Business School) first worked for a SME in the Liège region and then has developed his career within Goodyear Dunlop multinational. He was leading important subsidiaries before becoming vice-president of the Europe Africa and Middle East group. At this position, he has overseen the setting-up of performing innovation processes, international development policies and marketing strategies BtoB and BtoC. He has also established a corporate governance oriented towards investment and growth.
Within the EPIMEDE team, Philppe essentially acts on projects that are related to Engineering Sciences, strategic issues and corporate governance.
Bernard Surlemont (MBA and PhD in Strategic Management INSEAD) is professor specialized in entrepreneurship at the University of Liège. He is co-founder of SEED (which became CIDE-SOCRAN), but also of the Master HEC-ULg Entrepreneurs, the E-Capital I entrepreneurs fund, the business growth academy, the ID Campus' creativity platform and the incubator for students, VentureLab. Specialized in entrepreneurial finance and university spin-offs, he is often consulted for seeking financing and companies' growth strategy.
He has contributed to the launching of many technological start-ups, Mithra Pharmaceuticals for example. Within the EPIMEDE team, Bernard Surlemont acts as a support in investments negotiation, strategic consulting and investment exits management.
Eklo supports entrepreneurs and managers during all key moments in the development of their businesses, by means of a comprehensive range of services, which are specially tailored to their needs as they arise. Eklo produces diagnostics, market studies, business plans and financial plans, as well as other resources, while also helping companies to obtain subsidies.
Eklo has sectoral expertise and a specialist network within rapidly growing sectors, as well as key fields and trends (such as life sciences, engineering sciences and circular economy). Eklo’s goal is to help entrepreneurs bring their ideas to life and transform them into highly successful projects.
Noshaq Spin-Offs is the venture capital fund of ULiège, the University of Liège, and the result of a collaboration between Gesval, a ULiège technology transfer company and the Noshaq group. The fund supports the creation and development of spin-offs whose purpose is to promote and market the results of research carried out at ULiège and at the CHU de Liège.
ASIT Biotech SA is a biopharmaceutical company in the clinical phase, which is focused on development and commercialization of new immunotherapy medicines for respiratory or food allergies based on a technological platform ASIT+TM (Allergen Specific Immunotherapy). This platform enables to produce and characterize new active principles for immunotherapy of allergy.
Thanks to an improved security, these new active principles can be injected faster at the highest dose, which enables a treatment reduced to one month. ASIT biotech approved technological platform and therapeutic approach with a pollen allergy treatment, now in phase III and dust mites allergy treatment ready to enter the clinical phase.
NOVADIP Biosciences is a biopharmaceutical company which is focused on THE development and production of innovative substances in regenerative medicine. CREOST® product developed by the company, is composed of autologous stem cells (taken from patient in need of treatment) of adipose origin (fat tissue) which enable to create an easily implantable graft in a patient during a bone reconstruction. Innocuousness and effectiveness of CREOST® have been validated thanks to pre-clinical and clinical models.
NOVADIP Biosciences aims to highlight all cell therapy projects which are focused on the use of stem cells which come from adipose tissue. Stem cells contained in abundance are accessible through minimally invasive procedures and can be differentiated in many phenotypes (cellular-type), whose osteoblasts are the main cells which synthesis bone.
NOVADIP Biosciences is currently concentrating its development efforts on varied indications of bone reconstruction.
Closed at the end of 2015, Diagenode is one of the first Epimède investment. Epimède acted as a lead investor for this financing round, gathering around the table a number of partners well positioned to bring the company (then valued at €30Mio) to the next level. Between 2016 and 2021, Epimède worked very closely to the top management team, providing guidance for the growth strategy, for the capability building efforts and bringing excellence to the management processes. During this phase, we paid particular attention to the seamless integration between the entrepreneurial strategy and the financing strategy of the company. Significant efforts also went into profiling the company as capable player in the new and fast growing Epigenetic Diagnostic sector. In the middle of 2020, while promoting the interest of all stakeholders, we put a process in place to build the next company financing strategy, resulting in the acquisition in March 2021 of the totality of the share capital by Hologic Inc, a global leader in women’s health and diagnostics for an amount of €130Mio. We are proud to confirm that Hologic’s intention is to continue to build Diagenode as one of its key R&D and production hubs in Europe.
Lasea is specialized in the design and manufacture of extremely precise laser micro-machining machines (up to 0.2μm). It uses, among other things, femtosecond laser, which allows the ablating of materials without thermal effects in order to achieve precision and qualities still unrivaled with conventional technologies. These lasers are integrated in their machines equipped with 2D and 3D scanners, linear axes or robots, and measuring and vision equipment.
Active in 27 countries and 4 continents, it has subsidiaries in Bordeaux, San Diego and Biel. Its headquarters is in Belgium on the Liège Science Park.
The applications for the most demanding industries (medical, pharmaceutical, electronics and luxury) are numerous: cutting, marking, etching, drilling, ablation of thin layers and texturing.
Very active in the sectors of watchmaking, medical implants and pharmaceutical traceability, it has already installed more than 250 machines in the world (systems and production lines operating 24 hours a day) for prestigious references.
Ncardia believes that stem cell technology will help to get better medicines to patients faster. The company develops, produces and commercializes highly predictive human cellular assay systems for safety and efficacy testing. The cardiac product portfolio encompasses a broad panel of stem cell derived Cardiomyocytes (Pluricyte®, Cor.4U® and vCor.4U™) as well cardiac fibroblasts (FibroCor.4U™). In addition, the company delivers the Cardioplate™ product line of quality controlled ready to use assay plates. The neural cell portfolio contains the pan-neuronal product CNS.4U®, the peripheral neurons product Peri.4U®, and astrocyte product Astro.4U®.
Ncardia is committed to deliver its clients working assays solutions through in house assay development and extensive support. The company has a wide range of supported applications and compound assay services such as of electrophysiology, biochemistry and contraction based assays for predictive safety pharmacology and toxicology testing.
In addition, Ncardia develops and provides its customers with a broad portfolio of cardiovascular services from disease modeling to cardiovascular drug efficacy screening. Ncardia is based in Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and in the USA.
Founded in 2016, Radiomics is a next generation Liege-based imaging CRO built upon the unparallel experience of its founders, pioneers of the radiomics science. Radiomics uses its proprietary advanced image analysis technology based on AI, deep learning and federated learning to unravel the gold mine of hidden data information embedded in standard medical images with the aim to support insight-based decision making for optimizing pharmaceutical and biotech companies’ clinical trials and drug development studies and for providing clinicians with a patient-centered approach based on personalized medicine.
Based on its non-invasive approach, Radiomics has developed and validated a full pipeline of software as medical device, aimed at disease detection, patient follow-up and treatment prediction. Radiomics first product platform, RadiomiX Toolbox, allows to mine quantitative image features from (standard-of-care) medical imaging. Among other ongoing projects, in 2021 Radiomics will start its first clinical trial, SALMON, aiming at proving the power of radiomics for clinical decision making on oncology compared to current standard-of-care. In addition, Radiomics owns a strong intellectual property portfolio, including rights on the radiomics trademark, and its team is continuously working on new solutions, in collaboration with multiple national and international partners and is currently closing partnerships to scale up its activities geographically and into other disease areas.
Radiomics is ISO 13485 compliant and aims to be ISO 13485: 2016 certified in 2021.
Wishbone goal is to revolutionize bone regeneration for dental implants by developing superior bone graft substitute products with breakthrough technology and innovative procedure.
The guiding light of the genesis of Wishbone is to design and fine-tune a high-tech recipe to extract and inactivate all proteins, including prions, from bovine bone, but which would preserve the highly osteoconductive micro and nano-topography of the natural bone.
Wishbone biomaterials result from the collaboration between chemists, biomedical engineers and clinician experts in dental tissue engineering. Wishbone has invested in a high tech facility for R&D, production and QC, including a qualified ISO 7 cleanroom, located in Flemalle.
The company is ISO 13485 certified and is working on the CE certification and FDA approval of its first product.
Endo Tools Therapeutics (ETT) is a medical device company in commercial start-up phase. ETT specializes in the design, development and commercialization of innovative medical devices for gastroenterology. The developed products allow to extend the therapeutic possibilities by the natural ways by allowing complex gestures impossible with only an endoscope. ETT is thus a precursor in the development of new treatments by minimally invasive surgery or flexible endoscopy.
To date, 2 products developed by ETT have obtained CE marking, " Endomina " and " Tapes ".
The company is currently working on adopting its technologies as well as developing new devices for other uses and other intervention sites.
The developed devices have been used in several cohorts of patients and two articles describing the procedures and first results in the field of obesity have been published in 2017 and 2018. Further studies are under way, in the field of obesity and other indications. ETT is based in Belgium and is ISO 13485: 2016 certified.
Imcyse develops active targeted immunotherapies to treat and prevent severe chronic diseases caused by disruptions of the immune system.
The company’s unique active immunotherapy technology platform allows it to locally target immune cells involved in the destruction of the diseased organ. This platform is based on the administration of Imotopes™, which are specifically modified peptides, allowing for the generation of cytolytic CD4 T-cells.
Imcyse’s approach, sustained over time, helps to prevent and treat diseases with no current therapeutic alternative and to potentially cure patients without impairing immune defense.
The company has established proof of concept in several indications and has completed its first clinical trial in type 1 diabetes in seven European countries. Beyond type 1 diabetes, Imcyse is developing a pipeline of Imotopes™ for the treatment of several autoimmune diseases. Based in Liège, Belgium, Imcyse was originally founded in 2010 as a spin-off from the KU Leuven, Belgium.
The amount per investment is:
Global amount invested in each project will not exceed 33 % (thirty three percent) of the subscribed capital amount increased by amounts given by shareholders, that is to say all means that are made available by Épimède.
Company localization
We give priority to companies which have their head office or main operational office in Wallonia.
Company size
Companies, at the time of initial investment, must (a) have less than 500 (five hundred) employees, (b) net capital assets in the balance sheet which are not exceeding 75.000.000 € (seventy-five million euros) and (c) be self-employed, that is to say not being hold up to a limit of more than 33 % (thirty three percent) by a non-SME.
Privileged sectors concern life sciences (Biology, Biotechnology, MedTech, etc), engineering sciences (NTIC and Cleantech) and corporate services. The company has to, in all circumstances, present a competitive advantage in terms of technology or industry.
Financial situation of the company
The company has to:
Company management
The target company must have management tools at its disposal. Management and shareholders of the target company have to be able to demonstrate an opening to a growth strategy, it particularly concerns:
Agreement on the principle of a possible evolution of the managerial team composition.
We have the deep conviction that a successful partnership is based on shared values and common vision. This is essential in any entrepreneurial venture, inherently uncertain, which will experience its bifurcations, falls, opportunities which will necessitate making frequent, fast and serene decisions.
That is why all our investment decisions are made on a basis of dialogue and exchange. Our decision process is organized as follow:
Our team is really flexible and reactive. That means we can make decisions really quickly. Therefore, the decision-making process duration will mainly depend on the following points:
We are supporting the best and most ambitious entrepreneurs. The Épimède team has a strong experience in terms of strategy and business development of a technological nature. His passion is to work with entrepreneurs Épimède is partnering with in order to build a coherent business vision with an ambitious growth strategy, realistic and in line with means.
Our support is based on solid expert and experience but also on a well-developed network of contacts. This support will potentially be useful to help our entrepreneurs to refine their strategy related to key activities, product positioning, services, production, financing, marketing, recruitment, intellectual property management and internationalization.
Our approach is based on a constructive dialogue and positive challenge.