Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Aural Analytics, a US-based digital health spinout of Arizona State University, has collected $4.3m in a seed round co-led by Morningside Ventures and Tamarisc Ventures. The round also included Arizona Tech Investors, Desert Angels and private investors Jamie Gates and Marc Abramowitz. Aural Analytics has developed a platform that detects changes in speech that cannot be perceived through human analysis but that are indicative of the early stages of neurological disease. The technology is language agnostic and has so far been deployed in eight languages. The money will drive company growth and allow the spinout to expand its clinical trial platform and launch a range of additional tools.
Echopoint Medical, a UK-based optical sensing technology developer spun out of University College London (UCL), today picked up £2.8m ($3.5m) in funding from the institution’s UCL Technology Fund and Parkwalk Advisors, the fund management unit of commercialisation firm IP Group. Founded in November 2018, Echopoint is working on technology to detect whether a coronary heart disease patient will benefit from a stent implant, a surgery that is both risky and expensive but that is often applied to patients in a grey zone because the necessity for the procedure cannot be accurately determined. The money will support product development and a clinical trial with 20 to 30 patients.
Belyntic, a Germany-based chemistry-for-healthcare spinout of Humboldt University of Berlin, today closed a €1.3m ($1.4m) seed round led by state-owned development bank Investititonsbank Berlin, with participation from public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds and angel investor Till Knorr. Founded in May 2018, Belyntic has created a peptide easy clean technology that enables pharmaceutical research and development units to easily purify small proteins called peptides. Peptides are thought to have significant potential in fighting diseases such as cancer or diabetes, but current methods for purifying these proteins – a necessary first step in R&D activities – have proven difficult and harmful to the environment.
Thierry Heles
Thierry Heles is editor-at-large of Global University Venturing and Global Corporate Venturing, and host of the Beyond the Breakthrough podcast.
