Alantra, the pan-European investment bank and asset manager, has made a move into the venture capital space with the acquisition of a 35 per cent stake in health-focused VC house Asabys Partners.

Asabys, which is also backed by anchor investor Banc Sabadell, is based in Barcelona and led by veteran investors Josep Sanfeliu and Clara Campàs. It has already raised €60m for its Sabadell Asabys Health Innovation Investments fund and made three investments from the vehicle. The firm focuses on deals in e-health.

The deal represents the first transaction by Alantra in the venture space. The firm already has an established buyout business, Alantra Private Equity. This deal will see it expand its reach to deploy capital across different products and funds across Europe in the technology and VC segments. Ana Segurado joined Alantra in September 2018 to lead its move into venture.

Following the investment in Asabys, Alantra will also invest in the firm's fund and support the the manager as it seeks to broaden its investor base and increase its fund size to €80m. Current investors in the vehicle include FondICO Global and Institut Català de Finances (ICF), as well as various Catalan families and high net worth individuals. Banc Sabadell has also committed to the fund.

Alantra's move comes at a positive time for the wider European venture community. The industry's returns have improved significantly since the financial crisis and the gap in returns between US and European managers appears to be narrowing.

According to eFront, all-time European VC returns come in at 1.43x, versus 1.63x for the US. But when looking at active VC funds only, the numbers are much closer with 1.55x for western Europe and 1.57x for US. Over the past 10 years Europe and the US are pretty much at parity on VC returns.

Companies like iZettle, Last.fm, Skyscanner and Spotify have shown that Europe’s start-up scene simply can’t be ignored, while funding rounds for the likes of Revolut, OakNorth and Checkout.com, which raised $230m in the largest Series A venture funding round ever earlier this year, have demonstrated that ability of the European VC ecosystem to fund and scale fast-growing companies.