The venture capital firm has invested in the nutritional and sports supplement company Be levels, marking the Axon Innovation Growth I fund’s third acquisition in recent months.
Axon Partners Group launched the Innovation Growth I fund in 2021 to strengthen its focus on scale-ups—companies with high potential and a proven, profitable business model. Following an intense period of acquisitions in recent months, the firm is now close to depleting the approximately €150 million it raised for the fund and is preparing to continue this strategy with a new investment vehicle.
The firm, led by Francisco Velázquez, has recently completed another acquisition through the fund. This time, Axon has taken a minority stake in Be levels, a distributor of nutritional and sports supplements based on natural active ingredients. According to Axon, the investment amounts to €6 million.
Be levels was founded four years ago during the Covid-19 crisis. Despite the challenging environment at the time, the company has carved out a place in the market and has seen significant growth, with current annual revenues exceeding €7 million and turning a profit by the end of its second year in operation.
This investment in Be levels marks the third deal Axon Innovation Growth I made in recent months, following its acquisitions of the Italian companies Kleecks and Futura. With this latest addition, the fund’s portfolio now includes nine companies, among them Metricool (partially divested in early September), Embention (listed on the Euronext in Paris), Libelium, and Dogfy Diet (recently sold to Inveramen, the holding company of the Carulla family, owners of Agrolimen).
Results
This portfolio has validated the strategy behind Axon Innovation Growth I, delivering exceptional results. Despite being a fund launched in 2021—”one of the most challenging vintages in the past twenty years,” the firm emphasizes—it has achieved a gross multiple of over three times and has already returned nearly half of the capital to its investors.
In light of these results, Axon is confident in continuing this investment approach as Innovation Growth I nears the end of its resources. The firm is already deep into creating a successor fund with a similar focus and expects to bring it to market soon.
Axon believes there are abundant opportunities and strong investment prospects for this type of vehicle, which seeks to acquire minority stakes in innovative, established companies—primarily in Spain but also in the rest of Europe and Latin America. These companies require a financial partner that can provide international and operational expertise to support mergers and acquisitions or prepare for a stock market debut.
