Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Riverfield, a Japan-based healthcare robot spinout Tokyo Institute of Technology and Tokyo Medical and Dental University, raised ¥3bn ($27.3m) on Friday from engineering group Toray Engineering, insurer Dai-ichi Life and Medipal Innovation, a vehicle for medical supplies provider Medipal Holdings and financial services firm SBI subsidiary SBI Investment. Toray Engineering had joined SBI Investment, Jafco and Beyond Next Ventures (BNV) to provide $10.1m in funding for Riverfield in October 2017. Leasing services firm Fuyo General Lease and industrial parts manufacturer Sankei Giken Kogyo took part in a $4.6m round for the company three months earlier. Toray Engineering, BNV and Jafco had all backed a $5.3m round for Riverfield in 2016, two years after Jafco had supplied $1.9m in funding.
DataChat, a US-based data analytics platform spun out of University of Wisconsin-Madison, has completed a $25m series A round co-led by y Redline Capital and Anthos Capital. Celesta Capital (formerly known as WRVI Capital) and Nepenthe Capital also took part in the round. The latter two had co-led a $4m seed round in October 2020, when private investors also participated.
EnteroBiotix, a UK-based microbial therapeutics developer that emerged out of University of Aberdeen, has completed a $21.5m series A round led by investment firm Thairm Bio, with participation from Kineticos Ventures, Scottish Enterprise and SIS Ventures. EnteroBiotix closed a $2.5m pre-series A round in 2019 backed by University of Aberdeen and led by Equity Gap. That round also featured Scottish Investment Bank, National Collection of Industrial, Food and Marine Bacteria, as well as SIS Ventures, Bank Workers Charity, venture firm Barwell, Gabriel Venture Partners, Syndicate Room and Fund Twenty8.
GenXComm, a US-based communications technology spinout from University of Texas (UT) at Austin, has raised a $20m series B round led by infrastructure and energy conglomerate Motive Companies. The round also included BMW i Ventures and Intel Capital – on behalf of semiconductor data producer Intel and carmaker BMW – as well as merchant bank Raine’s Next-Gen Communications subsidiary, Azure Capital and Bandgap Ventures. GenXComm received an undisclosed amount from BMW i Ventures in July 2020, following $7m from UT Horizon Fund, a vehicle for UT Austin, as well as Intel Capital, Azure Capital Partners, Bandgap Ventures, Capital Factory, Lip-Bu Tan, WS Investment and Fam Capital Partners in 2017.
Adriakaim, the Japan-based developer of a treatment system for heart disease, raised ¥550m ($5m) in equity and convertible note financing today from robotics technology producer Cyberdyne and its CEJ Capital subsidiary, technology transfer and VC firm 360IP Japan and unnamed angel investors. The company had received $3m in funding from University of Tokyo’s UTokyo Innovation Platform in August 2020.
– Additional reporting by Robert Lavine and Liwen-Edison Fu
