The commercialisation firm will cut cash operating expenses by more than 40% year-on-year, while SciFluor Life and Precision Biopsy received $9m in financing between them.

Dianomi Therapeutics will work with Ligand on a medication delivery platform based on research from University of Wisconsin-Madison initially targeting pain disorders and osteoarthritis.

IP Group returned to join corporates BP and Drax for the Leeds CO2 capture spinout’s latest round, taking its total investment in the company to $2.2m since 2009.

The funding takes Istesso’s latest round to $13m as the company continues clinical trials on an immunometabolic drug licensed from an Aberdeen spinout in 2007.

US-based Blue Water Vaccines has an option on University of Oxford research into a universal influenza shot and is looking to raise $15m in funding.

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

Cambridge-founded automated cell analytics platform Sphere Fluidics has added $2m of funding, bringing its lifetime haul to $14.9m.

Osage University Partners has put up additional capital for oil and gas fluids monitor developer Seismos, which was founded by students from University of Texas.

IIM Ahmedabad's incubator supplied seed funding to help environmental monitoring startup Oizom Instruments pursue marketing, product enhancements and R&D.

City Football is the anchor investor in Sapphire Sport, which is also backed by SAP, Adidas, Sinclair, AEG, Major League Baseball, the New York Jets and the San Jose Sharks.