Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Amira Learning, a US-based early-years reading assessment tool developer based on Carnegie Mellon University, University of Texas and University of Houston inventions, has obtained $5m in a series A round led by VC fund Owl Ventures, EdSurge reported on Wednesday. The round involved textbook publisher Houghton Mifflin Harcourt – one of Amira’s distribution partners – as well as GSV Accelerate and Rethink Education. Founded in 2018, Amira markets a speech recognition-powered software product that helps primary school children develop their reading skills by listening and evaluating as they read from course texts. Amira’s underlying algorithms were licensed from Carnegie Mellon, while the assessment criteria came from University of Houston and University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. The company previously secured $3m in a September 2018 seed round led by Vertical Venture Partners.
CroíValve, an Ireland-based Trinity College Dublin (TCD) medical device spinout targeting defects in the tricuspid valve of the heart, has collected €4m ($4.4m) of funding including $1.7m in equity from investors including Atlantic Bridge-managed spinout-focused vehicle University Bridge Fund. Halo Business Angel Network (HBAN) Medtech, SOS Ventures and Irrus Syndicates also contributed. The capital will help bring CroíValve’s treatment into initial clinical studies. CroíValve raised $3.6m in an April 2019 seed round backed by University Bridge Fund, government-owned enterprise support agency Enterprise Ireland, HBAN, Irrus and unnamed cardiologists, following an earlier round of undisclosed size.
MyCellHub, a Germany-based KU Leuven spinout commercialising biotech workflow management software, has received €1.1m ($1.2m) in a round backed by the university’s Gemma Frisius Fund. Investment firm Noshaq also took part together with incubator-driven seed funds Faktory and CoFoundry. MyCellHub has devised a software-as-a-service used by biopharmaceutical developers to automate data collection and reporting tasks related to their sterile production environment. The capital will support its business growth by recruiting software engineers and strengthening sales and customer service ahead of a rollout of its technology in certain European markets.
Aspero Medical, a US-based endoscopy device spinout of University of Colorado, Boulder, has received an undisclosed seed sum from incubator-driven VC vehicle Innosphere Fund. Founded in 2018, Aspero Medical is working on a device for diagnosing gastrointestinal disease that would improve upon the performance and cost-efficiency of conventional endoscopy products. The cash will support continued product development, the acquisition of manufacturing capacity, completion of regulatory filings and progress towards Aspero’s commercial strategy. Innosphere Fund also equipped Aspero with an undisclosed amount in July 2018.
Canada-based intelligent wine maturation tool developer BarrelWise has raised an undisclosed sum from University of British Columbia (UBC)’s Seed Fund. The company has devised a technology that allows wineries to monitor the ageing of wine barrels and manage certain parameters through a smartphone app. It is a portfolio company of UBC startup accelerator Hatch Ventures, having joined during the January 2019 cohort.