Founding investor Mercia Technologies joined fund manager Invesco for the synthetic biology contractor’s latest round, taking its total funding past the $25m mark.

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

Jean-Luc Moullet has joined the French National Center for Scientific Research, also known as CNRS, as its chief technology officer.

The office has appointed three directors and two advisers including Russell Cowburn, professor of experimental physics, and Cancer Research UK's Tony Hickson.

Parkwalk Advisors has injected an additional $2.6m into GeoSpock, two months after the Cambridge spinout secured $12.8m in a round co-led by the fund manager.

HTGF has returned to back Freiburg's single cell-dispensing spinout Cytena after previously featuring in the company’s $1.3m round in 2015.

Founded by a former research engineer from regional TTO Satt AxLR, genetic analysis platform company SeqOne has become one of the first businesses to be backed by the PSL Innovation Fund.

Johnson & Johnson Innovation – JJDC, IP Group and CIC have returned for a $52.2m series B round for Inivata, a spinout of Cancer Research UK and University of Cambridge.

IP Group, CIC and Johnson & Johnson have returned for a $52.2m series B round in Inivata, a spinout of Cancer Research UK and University of Cambridge.

Liverpool's health sciences academic assessment software spinout has been bought by exam platform ExamSoft, which will augment and integrate its services.