Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Aignostics, a Germany-based pathology software spinout of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin and Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, closed a €5m ($6m) seed round on Friday led by Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, the strategic venturing am for pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim. The round was filled out by public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds, Future Capital and VC Fonds Technologie der IBB, a subsidiary of state-run development bank Investitionsbank Berlin. Founded in 2018, Aignostics has built artificial intelligence models intended to help pathologists execute diagnostics and set up clinical studies of new drugs. The software is billed as resolving the so-called explainability gap whereby AI pathology models produce deductions that cannot be traced back, raising ethical questions for medical practitioners. Aignostics’ technology is the brainchild of Frederick Klauschen, deputy director of Charité’s Institute of Pathology, and associates led by Klaus-Robert Müller, professor for machine learning at TU Berlin. The spinout is also a graduate of a digital health accelerator run by Berlin Institute of Health, a joint venture of Charité and Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, a member institute of Helmholtz Association. The funding will go toward Aignostics’ research program with the aim of launching diagnostic aid products.
Biodol Therapeutics, a France-based painkiller medication spinout of multiple French research institutions, has secured €4.5m ($5.4m) in series A funding led by venture firm V-Bio Ventures. Founded in 2015, Biodol hopes to exploit a receptor situated on sensory neurons, FLT3, to control chronic pain originating from the central nervous and immune systems. The funding will go to product development. Biodol’s founding research stems in part from findings by Jean Valmier, professor at University of Montpellier and Inserm Institute for Neurosciences of Montpellier. Valmier was assisted by Didier Rognan, a research director at national institute CNRS and director of University of Strasbourg’s Laboratory for Therapeutic Innovation.
Regional Fish, a Japan-based aquaculture technology spinout of Kyoto University, has completed a ¥400m ($3.8m) series A round featuring chemical manufacturer Ube Industries, Beyond Next Ventures, Innovation C and Kyoto Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Growth Support Fund as well as Mitsubishi UFJ Capital and Chushin Venture Capital, respective subsidiaries of financial services firms Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Kyoto Chuo Shinkin Bank. Regional Fish previously secured $1.9m in a seed round led by Beyond Next Ventures, with participation from industrial machinery manufacturer Ebara Corporation, in June 2020.
Stoic Venture Capital has been revealed as an investor in an A$3.5m ($2.6m) series A round for Ferronova, an Australia-based cancer diagnosis spinout of University of Sydney, according to Mirage News. The round was led by multi-university venture fund Uniseed and was originally reported by local media in May 2020. Founded in 2016, Ferronova has built a medical device that injects magnetic and fluorescent tracers in order to detect cancers such as colorectal cancer that are generally difficult to diagnose.
AWL, a Japan-based spinout of Hokkaido University that is developing edge artificial intelligence technology for cameras, has collected an undisclosed sum from machine rental service provider Katagiri.
χ-Pharma, a France-based coronavirus treatment developer based on research at Sorbonne University, has been spun out with the support of regional tech transfer office Satt Lutech. The spinout’s programme aims to activate a mechanism called hACE2 in order to inhibit the Spike protein on the surface of Sars-Cov-2, the coronavirus that infects pulmonary cells to cause Covid-19. Satt Lutech claimed the toxicity of hACE2 remained manageable even at high-doses and suggested the drug could initially be formulated as an oral alternative to preventative vaccines.
Metalmark, a US-based air purification technology spinout of Harvard University, was officially licensed today having raised an undisclosed amount of pre-seed funding. Pollutants entering the company’s system would be disintegrated by nanoparticles embedded within its porous nano-architecture, filtering out small particles such as airborne viruses that can allude existing indoor purifiers. Metalmark said it was in the process of raising seed capital but did not state its existing or potential investors. The purification technology originated in the lab of Joanna Aizenberg, a faculty associate of Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biological Inspired Engineering and Amy Smith Berylson, professor of material sciences at the university’s John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.
