Every day, Global University Venturing rounds up the smaller investments from across the university innovation ecosystem in its deal net.
Locate Bio, a UK-based spinal injury treatment spinout of University of Nottingham, has collected £10m ($13.8m) in a funding round co-led by Mercia Asset Management and BGF. The company is also exploiting research from Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland’s University of Medicine and Health Sciences, having licensed several assets in September last year. Mercia had already led a $2.9m funding round in July 2020, with a contribution from the Future Fund.
Bonx, Japan-based headset hardware and software provider backed by Keio University’s Keio Innovation Initiative (KII), has secured ¥700m ($6.4m) in series D funding from property developer Mori Trust as well as Globis Capital Partners and JR East Start Up, respective corporate venturing subsidiaries of education services provider Globis and rail operator JR East. Bonx previously closed a ¥310m ($2.9m) series C round in April 2020 featuring KII as well as IT services firm TIS, electronics manufacturer Kaga, trading group Kanematsu, Innovation Engine and Hack Ventures. It had raised $10m across three rounds between 2017 and July 2018, from KII, Kaga, adtech provider Adways, office equipment manufacturer Ricoh, acoustics technology producer Rion, Sansei Capital, Mitsubishi UFJ Capital, Edge Labs and INCJ’s IP Bridge unit.
Metry, a Sweden-based platform that analyses energy usage to help real estate companies increase the efficiency of their buildings, has picked up SEK32m ($3.8m) in a funding round backed by Chalmers Ventures, the commercialisation arm of Chalmers University of Technology. The round was led by Fairpoint Capital. Chalmers Ventures had already backed a Summa Equity-led $1.5m round in 2019 together with Metry chairman Andreas Rydholm, and a $700,000 round in 2016, when Almi and angel investors also took part.
Myriota, an Australia-based satellite internet-of-things connectivity spinout of University of South Australia, has bagged an undisclosed amount of funding from IAG Firemark Ventures, the corporate venturing arm of insurance provider IAG. In April 2020, Myriota obtained $19.3m in series B financing co-led by Main Sequence Ventures and Hostplus, while subsidiaries of aerospace manufacturer Boeing and telecommunications firm Singtel, as well as In-Q-Tel, the state government-owned South Australian Venture Capital Fund, Right Click Capital and former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull also took part.
– Additional reporting by Liwen-Edison Fu
