Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Tacalyx, a Germany-based cancer therapeutics developer spun out of Max Planck Institute (MPI) of Colloids and Interfaces, today secured €7m ($7.7m) of seed funding from investors co-led by Kurma Partners and Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, part of pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim. Public-private partnership High-Tech Gründerfonds also contributed capital alongside Idinvest Partners, Coparion and Creathor Ventures. Tacalyx hopes to leverage antibodies against tumour-associated carbohydrate antigens that have been identified as a pathway to modulating the virulence of tumour cells. Its scientific co-founders are Peter Seeberger, director of MPI of Colloids and Interfaces, and Oren Moscovitz, a group leader at the institute specialised in glyco-biology and glycol-oncology.
Rob Surgical, a Spain-based minimally invasive surgery technology spinout of Polytechnic University of Catalonia and Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia, has closed a €5m ($5.5m) round supplied by diversified holding group Scranton Enterprises, FinSMEs reported today. Rob Surgical is working on Bitrack, a robotics system for laparoscopy surgery, and will use the funding to secure EU regulatory approval for the technology. The spinout expects to build three additional units by 2021 to finalise the validation and industrialization process, grow its headcount and undertake final safety and functionality trials.
Mindway AI, a Denmark-based problem gambling prevention software developer spun out of Aarhus University, has raised DKK4m ($600,000) from online betting guidance company BetterCollective for a 20% equity stake, and also received $600,000 from the latter in debt. Mindway AI’s software provides early detection of problem gambling behaviour on online platforms using neuroscience insights and artificial intelligence technology. The spinout was founded in 2018 to advance technology developed by Aarhus University researchers including Kim Mouridsen, a professor in the department of clinical medicine’s Center of Functionally Integrative Neuroscience.
Omega Therapeutics, a US-based genomics medicine developer leveraging Massachusetts Institute of Technology research, emerged from stealth on Monday having been incubated by life sciences investment firm Flagship Pioneering. Founded in 2017, Omega Therapeutics is working on drugs that leverage its genomic sequencing platform to treat disease without affecting the patient’s nucleic acid sequences. Its platform builds on epigenomics research conducted by Richard Young and Rudolf Jaenisch, two MIT professors of biology who are both members of the Whitehead Institute.
