Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Sadeem, a Saudi Arabia-based environmental sensor spinout of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (Kaust), has raised $2.6m from Kaust’s Innovation Fund and oil producer Saudi Aramco’s corporate venturing unit Wa’ed Ventures, the Saudi Gazette reported yesterday. The money will go to developing sensors that could help predict natural disasters, particularly those experienced in Saudi Arabia, while also funding upgrades to Sadeem’s existing technologies for air quality, flood and traffic monitoring. Sadeem was formed in 2016 by then-Kaust professor Christian Claudel alongside three postdoctoral graduates – Mustafa Mousa, Ahmad Dehwah and Esteban Canepa.
EverZom spun out from France-based regional tech transfer office Erganeo on Friday to pursue industrial manufacturing of extracellular vesicles used to enhance the safety of regenerative medicines. Released organically from cells as a lipid bilayer-delimited particle, extracellular vesicles have attracted scientific interest for their role in intracellular communication, which means they could convey stem cell instructions to damaged tissues in the body, ending the need to inject stem cells to the disease site directly. EverZom aims to manufacture the particles – of which there is limited supply – at 10 times greater output and within a fraction of the time it takes conventional technologies. The spinout advances inventions from Laboratory Materials and Complex Systems, a collaboration between research institute CNRS and Université Paris Diderot.