Yesterday marked the close of three new financing rounds in the biotech space. Although none of today’s are that large, there is still plenty of money on the move. Here’s a look.
Yesterday marked the close of three new financing rounds in the biotech space, ElevateBio ($525 million), insitro ($400 million) and Graphite Bio ($150 million). Although none of today’s are that large, there is still plenty of money on the move. Here’s a look.
Inflammatix Raised $102 Million Series D
Burlingame, California-based Inflammatix closed on a Series D financing round worth $102 million. It was led by D1 Capital Partners with participation from existing investors, including Northpond Ventures, Khosla Ventures, Think Health, and OSF Healthcare Ventures. The company is developing its platform for diagnosing the presence and type of infection, viral and bacterial, and the risk of severe disease. It reads the patient’s immune response across multiple mRNA biomarkers using machine learning algorithms. The money raised will enable regulatory clearance and global commercialization of the Myrna system and the InSep acute infection and sepsis test.
“We are thrilled to welcome D1 Capital Partners to our strong investor syndicate and look forward to bringing host response diagnostics to market,” said Tim Sweeney, chief executive officer and co-founder of Inflammatix.
Iridia Raised $24 Million in Series B
San Diego-based Iridia closed on its Series B round worth $24 million. It was led by LifeSci Venture Partners of New York, with participants including Pritzker Vlock Family Office (PVFO), Longley Capital Validus Growth Investors, ATEM Capital, Tech Coast Angels, and a number of high net-worth individuals. The company is focusing on developing technology “to integrate the writing, storage, and read back of massive amounts of data in a microchip format using synthetic DNA as the storage media.”
Paul Yook, partner and chief information officer of LifeSci Venture Partners, said, “The enthusiasm for this investment reflects the coming of age of DNA-based data storage and underscores the growing need for a robust, cost-effective and sustainable solution.”
EyeYon Medical’s $25 Million Series C
EyeYon Medical closed a Series C funding round totaling $25 million. It was led by a global strategic leader in the ophthalmic industry and CR-CP Life Science Fund. Other participants included Global Health Sciences (GHS) Fund (Quark Venture LP and GF Securities), BPC and existing investors Triventures, Rimonci, Pontifax and Diamond BioFund. The funds will be used to advance clinical trials of the company’s EndoArt, a synthetic implant that allows doctors to treat chronic corneal edema with minimally invasive surgery.
“These resources will enable us to accelerate the clinical and regulatory phases in our key markets,” said Ofer Daphna, co-founder and the inventor of EndoArt. “EndoArt will simplify corneal surgical procedures and can potentially empower any anterior segment surgeon to perform the surgery with a vision to eliminate the worldwide long waiting list for available human donor corneas.”
StrideBio’s Series B Worth $81.5 Million
StrideBio, based in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, closed on an oversubscribed Series B funding round worth $81.5 million. It was co-led by Northpond Ventures and Novo Holdings and included new investors Pontifax, Octagon Capital, Sarepta Therapeutics, CaaS Capital and UF Innovate Ventures, with existing investors Hatteras Venture Partners, UCB Ventures, Takeda Ventures and Alexandria Venture Investments. The company develops novel engineered adeno-associated virus (AAV) based gene therapies.
“With this additional funding secured, we will be able to translate next generation gene therapies enabled by our lead engineered capsids into the clinic to benefit patients,” said Sapan Shah, StrideBio’s chief executive officer.
Acepodia’s $47 Million Series B
San Mateo, California-based Acepodia closed on a $47 million Series B financing. The round was supported by new U.S. institutional investors, including Ridgeback Capital Investments, 8VC, and DEFTA Partners, and the Taiwan-based institutional investor CDIB Capital Healthcare. The company’s Series A investors also participated. The monies will be used to advance Acepodia’s lead off-the-shelf natural killer (NK) cell therapy candidate, ACE1702, through clinical development in solid tumors, to advance its preclinical NK and gamma delta T-cell therapy pipeline into the clinic.
“This second capital raise for Acepodia represents a strong vote of confidence by our investors in our highly differentiated approach to cell therapy, particularly with NK cells, and in the company’s potential to provide superior treatment options for patients with cancer,” said Sonny Hsiao, founder and chief executive officer of Acepodia.
