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

Innovation Platform for the University of Tokyo (UTokyo IPC) has invested ¥150m ($1.4m) in Modulus Discovery, a Japan-based preclinical-stage drug discovery spinout of University of Tokyo. The company had raised a $7.2m series A round led by the World Bank’s Fast Track Initiative, along with biopharmaceutical company PeptiDream and DBJ Capital, the investment unit of Development Bank of Japan, in August 2018.
Neurava, a US-based epilepsy monitoring device developer affiliated to Purdue University, has secured $20,000 in funding from Elevate Ventures, the VC manager of Elevate Purdue Foundry Fund. The funding will aid market research with a view to building a prototype of Neurava’s product, a wearable device that monitors epilepsy sufferers to predict the risk of sudden and unexpected death. Neurava was co-founded by Jay Shah and Vivek Ganesh, two graduate students in the Purdue University lab of Pedro Irazoqui, the Reilly professor of biomedical engineering and a professor of electrical and computer engineering.
Purdue University has spun out US-bases Hasler Ventures to commercialise a rare earth metal extraction technique invented by Nien-Hwa Linda Wang, the Maxine Spencer Nichols professor of chemical engineering.  Rare earth metals are essential for machinery including electronics and aircraft engines, however their extraction produces large quantities of toxic waste. Purdue’s technique would employ ligand-assisted chromatography in a bid to finely purify the metals from base materials such as raw ore or magnets and potentially help US miners compete against their less-regulated Chinese rivals.