Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.

Prophecy.io, a US-based low code data engineering platform backed by University of California, Berkeley’s SkyDeck Fund, has raised $6.8m in capital led by SignalFire, with participation from angel investor Ross Mason. Berkeley SkyDeck Fund and SignalFire previously supplied an undisclosed amount of seed financing in August 2019, with Angel.co estimating the round to have been worth $4.7m. High-Reso, a Japan-based operator of data centres catered for graphical processing unit developers, has received ¥330m ($3.1m) in a series A round featuring Tokyo University of Science Innovation Capital, energy utility Hokuriku Electric Power Company, agricultural product provider Cifra and calendar publisher Jingukan. The total figure includes an unspecified amount of debt financing provided by undisclosed financial institutions. The company said it has now raised $9.4m in overall debt and equity financing. Hexigone, a UK-based smart corrosion inhibitors developer based on research at Swansea University, has collected £894,000 ($1.2m) in funding from Welsh government-owned Development Bank of Wales, UK government-owned British Business Bank’s Future Fund and Enterprise Investment Scheme, livery company Armourers and Brasiers, Sunnybarn Investments and Hexigone chairman, Owen Sennitt, according to Insider Media. The funding will allow Hexigone to pursue commercial agreements in Asia. Neil MacDougall, who also invested in the round, will joined the board of directors of Hexigone. ConstellR, a Germany-based land monitoring technology developer spun out of Fraunhofer Society and German Aerospace Center, has received €1m ($1.2m) in pre-seed funding led by Fraunhofer’s tech transfer fund, FTTF, according to TechCrunch. Space technology producer OHB’s investment arm, OHB Venture Capital, Baden-Württemberg’s state bank, L-Bank, and an unnamed additional investor filled out the round. Jaguar Gene Therapy, a US-based gene therapy developer, has emerged out of stealth with an undisclosed amount of series A financing provided by Deerfield Management. Jaguar launched together with a ciliopathy-focused subsidiary Axovia Therapeutics, which will advance research led by Prof Philip Beales, former head of Genetics and Genomic Medicine at University College London (UCL). Axovia also attracted funding from university venture fund UCL Technology Fund. Deerfield expects to provide access to additional academic research into potential gene therapy candidates to Jaguar in future. Solgate, an Austria-based biotechnology developer, has secured an undisclosed amount of funding from IST Cube, the venture fund of Institute of Science and Technology (IST) Austria, and private investors. Solgate is commercialising research from IST Austria and Austrian Academy of Sciences’ Research Center for Molecular Medicine, with support from economic development bank AWS. Solgate hopes to develop drugs aimed at solute carrier…

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Thierry Heles

Thierry Heles is the editor of Global University Venturing, host of the Beyond the Breakthrough interview podcast and responsible for the monthly GUV Gazette (sign up here for free).