Merck & Co has contributed to Themis’ series D round after signing a strategic partnership agreement last month to develop vaccines for undisclosed diseases.

Each Friday the Global Corporate Venturing Deal Net rounds up the week’s smaller deals and tracks the emerging companies accessing corporate funds.

Creditshelf is buying business financing tool developer Valendo, which has raised an undisclosed amount from investors such as ProSiebenSat.1 Accelerator.

University of Cambridge-founded autoimmune disease developer PredictImmune has expanded its IP base with first refusal rights on prognostics for systemic lupus erythematosus.

Alicia Greated, Heriot-Watt University’s director of research and enterprise has been named chief executive of Innovate UK’s Knowledge Transfer Network.

The Lundbeck and Upsher-Smith-backed drug development technology provider reportedly raised the funding at half the $2bn valuation of its last round in 2018.

ItaTech has committed an initial $33m to the fund, which will invest in spinouts emerging out of 19 partner universities and research institutes across Italy.

Goldman Sachs has led a $147m funding round for cybersecurity developer Acronis, pushing the company’s valuation beyond the $1bn mark.

The Visegrad Fund has been pumping money into driving innovation and entrepreneurship across Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia.

Edenred, Samsung, Swiss Post and Swisscom all returned in a $45m series B round for Beekeeper, which is targeting accelerated adoption of its workforce communications platform.