Demand for the Sofindev VII fund far exceeded its maximum offering of €400 million and it closed on 10 July 2026.
When Brussels-based Sofindev Management launched the Sofindev VII fund at the end of April 2026, their aim was to raise at least €350 million. “[The oversubscription] is a strong endorsement of our team, our strategy and, above all, the entrepreneurs and management teams we have the privilege to partner with,” Sofindev managing partners Eric Van Droogenbroeck and Jan Camerlynck said in a statement.
From the founding of Sofindev in 1991 through Sofindev III (raised in 2006), Sofindev’s funds were created and capitalised by its original founders, Sofina and Colruyt, with the Boël and Colruyt families as reference shareholders. Since their independence in 2015, the Sofindev management team has raised close to €1 billion through four funds (Sofindev IV, V, VI and VII) and several co-investments.
Sofindev IV was launched in 2015 with €107 million in committed capital and closed 10 years later (in 2025), delivering an annual compound return of 27 percent to its investors.
In December 2019, Sofindev opened its fifth fund with a capital of €170 million. The fund closed in 2020. Between June 2020 and December 2022, Sofindev used the capital from the fund to buy stakes in eight companies, including Dynamate, Wopaco, MediaGeniX, Loyals Groep, Delta Engineering, Foodpartners International, Climate Pioneers, and Altebra.
On 24 June 2026, part of Sofindev V’s stake in Dynamate was sold to Dynamate-Galibier, the new group created by Dynamate's merger with VanRoey. Sofindev V retained a significant minority interest in the combined group.
The Sofindev VI launched in December 2022 and closed in March 2023, having raised €250 million. Between September 2023 and March 2026, the fund took stakes in nine companies: Expertum, Merkator, Coffee Service Group, Shipex, WVT Group, Polysto, Euphoria Mobility, Elindus and Altenova (a merger of Sofindev’s Altebra asset with the Slovak company Pyronova).
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Strong interest from these funds’ current investors forms the vast majority of the capital for the new fund, comprising renowned entrepreneurs and industrial families, as well as a limited number of prominent institutional investors (such as the Belgian Growth Fund). It also includes entrepreneurs and family shareholders of the companies in which Sofindev has invested.
“We are enormously grateful to our existing shareholder base for the support we have enjoyed over the past years and are experiencing again now. Despite the challenging economic, social and geopolitical environment in which we find ourselves, which leads to great uncertainty, they have given us their overwhelming confidence to continue our growth and development as a leading private equity player in the Benelux,” Eric and Jan said. “In addition, we are especially grateful to the partners in our portfolio companies for the fantastic collaboration and their contribution to the meaningful value that we strive to create together for all stakeholders.”
Sofindev also welcomed several new, high-quality investors to the fund.
The company plans to use the capital to continue investing in small and medium-sized enterprises based in the Benelux region. “Sofindev VII builds on the track record of the previous funds and will continue the path taken by Sofindev V and VI, also acquiring stakes in Dutch companies, alongside its focus on its historic home market, Belgium, where Sofindev aims to play a leading role.”
