Willem Broekaert

Willem Broekaert co-founded V-Bio Ventures in 2015 and has been a Managing Partner of the firm since inception. V-Bio Ventures is an independent life sciences venture capital firm with €186 million under management across two funds, focused on building and financing young, innovative life science companies.

Before V-Bio Ventures, Broekaert spent more than 15 years in VC-backed life sciences companies as an entrepreneur, consultant, and executive. He was founder and CEO of Fugeia NV, now owned by Cargill, and Vice President R&D of CropDesign NV, now part of BASF.

Earlier in his career, Broekaert was professor of Plant Biotechnology and Plant Pathology at the University of Leuven, Belgium. He holds an MSc and PhD in BioScience Engineering from the University of Leuven and a master’s degree in agricultural economics from IGIA/ESSEC in Paris.

• V-Bio Ventures says it invests in “private companies with differentiated technology addressing unmet needs” and looks for “innovative and transformational technologies with high societal and/or environmental impact potential.”
• The firm’s stated thematic focus is therapeutics, including both drug discovery and drug development.
• V-Bio co-creates startups and invests in early- to mid-stage companies with high growth potential.
• The firm has a preferred relationship with VIB, the Belgium-based life sciences research institute, and also sources from other research institutes, entrepreneurial initiatives, and mature-company spin-outs across Europe.
• Broekaert has written that biotech company performance depends not only on science, strategy, and capital, but also on team dynamics; he argues that “constructive controversy” helps biotech teams avoid both destructive conflict and groupthink.