Numaferm, a peptide production platform spun out of Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, raised a seven-digit euro (€1 = $1.1m) seed round today from investors including public-private partnership High Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF).
The European Investment Fund, an EU-owned agency tasked with providing capital to SMEs, also took part in the round alongside angel investors Detlev Riesner and Jürgen Schumacher.
Founded in 2017, Numaferm is developing a fermentative process that enables plannable, high-yield production of peptides, a fundamental component of cells. Current technology to produce peptides is expensive, harmful to the environment and time consuming.
Numaferm’s approach has applications in pharmaceuticals, with a current industry pipeline of more than 500 peptide-based drug candidates, special adhesives, feed additives and surface coating.
The technology is based on research conducted by Christian Schwarz during his doctorate at the university’s Biochemistry Institute. Previously, the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Energy supplied a research transfer grant under its Exist initiative.
Philipp Rittershaus, investment manager at HTGF, said: „With Numaferm’s unique production technology, various peptides with novel functionalities can be made commercially available. Our investment means this potential can be leveraged.”
