SoftBank invested $125m through a $160m private placement as portfolio company and cancer drug developer Exscientia went public in an offering sized at nearly $305m.

UK-based drug discovery platform developer Exscientia floated on the Nasdaq Global Select Market on Friday in an initial public offering sized at almost $305m, representing an exit for several corporate investors.

The company issued more than 13.8 million shares priced at $22 each, increased from almost 13.1 million and at the top of the IPO’s $20 to $22 range. Its shares closed at $27.10 on Friday, equating to a market capitalisation of more than $3.2bn.

Telecommunications and internet conglomerate SoftBank’s Vision Fund 2 invested $125m and philanthropic organisation Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation purchased $35m of shares in a concurrent private placement.

Exscientia has built an end-to-end target identification, drug design and patient selection technology platform that relies on artificial intelligence.

The company has three drug candidates in phase 1 trials including EXS21546, which is being developed internally to stimulate the restoration of T cell functionality in cancer treatments, and two more being developed in partnership with pharmaceutical firm Sumitomo Dainippon Pharma.

Proceeds from the offering have been allocated to platform development, the completion of EXS21546’s phase 1 study, additional proof-of-concept studies, funding Exscientia’s pandemic preparedness programme and other research and development activities.

Exscientia had raised more than $368m in equity funding prior to the flotation. SoftBank Vision Fund 2 led its $225m series D round, in April 2021, which also featured pharmaceutical firms Novo and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMS) as well as Pivotal BioVenture Partners, which is owned by property development group Nan Fung.

Funds managed by BlackRock, GT Healthcare Capital, Marshall Wace, Laurion Capital, Hongkou and Mubadala Investment Company filled out the series D round, to which SoftBank committed an additional $300m to be withdrawn at Exscientia’s discretion.

The company’s earlier funding was supplied by Novo, BMS, drug discovery firm Evotec, pharmaceutical company Celgene (since acquired by BMS), Frontier IP and unnamed limited partners of GT Healthcare.

SoftBank has become the largest shareholder in Exscientia following the private placement, increasing its stake from 13.7% to 16.3%. Other notable shareholders include founder and CEO Andrew Hopkins (15.8% post-IPO), Evotec (11.9%), Novo (11.1%) and BlackRock (5.4%).

Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, BofA Securities and Barclays Capital are joint book-running managers for the offering. They have a 30-day option to purchase up to 2.08 million additional shares, which could boost its size to more than $350m.

The original version of this article appeared on our sister site, Global University Venturing. Image courtesy of Exscientia plc.

Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the former editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and was the producer and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast until December 2024.