Global University Venturing

Academic technology managers rarely make the first offer and therefore relinquish the opportunity to establish the anchor and ceiling

BGU spinout Neuroderm, which is developing clinical-stage pumps containing medicine for Parkinson’s, has been bought by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma for $1.1bn.

Innoetics, a text-to-speech developer based on research at Athena, has been acquired by Samsung in the highest value exit of a Greek spinout in decades.

Existing investors SoftBank and Didi Chuxing invested $2bn at a $6bn post-money valuation, and Grab aims to use the money to expand its services far beyond ride hailing.

A round up of all the latest news on www.globaluniversityventuring.com for our subscribers.

The Jerusalem Innovation Incubator is set to obtain $25m from Reliance Industries, which helped launch the project last month alongside Yissum and others.

The spinout of Heriot-Watt University has secured $1.3m in its latest funding round, which featured a mix of existing and new investors.

University of New Mexico has revealed it generated 12 new businesses during its financial year that ended June 30.

Scheer Holding has acquired a minority stake in Fanomena, which develops specialised software for the event organisers.

Bright.md, the provider of a virtual healthcare service backed by StartX, has raised $8m in its latest funding round.