BDC Capital, the investment arm of state-owned Business Development Bank of Canada, has participated in the first close of an $11.5m funding round for Encycle Therapeutics, a biotechnology spinout of Toronto University.
The round was co-led by Prelude Ventures and Ngen Partners, while state-owned export credit agency Export Development Canada and Enertech Capital also participated.
Encycle Therapeutics has developed technology that uses a synchronised cluster of rootop air conditioning units to generate energy savings of approximately 20% to 25%.
The spinout previously obtained $2.15m in an October 2015 round led by Takeda Ventures, the corporate venturing division of pharmaceutical firm Takeda Pharmaceutical.
BDC Capital, non-profit research organisation Mars Innovation, through its Investment Accelerator Fund, and Accel-Rx Health Sciences Accelerator also contributed to that round.
Encycle had earlier secured C$2.5m ($1.9m) from unnamed backers in 2014.
Robert Chiste, president and chief executive of Encycle, said: “We are very pleased that Prelude Ventures has joined Ngen Partners and the other existing Encycle investors. We are growing our client base with the recognition that our Swarm solution is an extremely effective set and forget service.”
– This article first appeared on our sister site Global Government Venturing.
