Antiverse Raises £3.5M ($4.6M) from i&i biotech fund and other investors to Advance Generative AI Antibody Design Platform
Antiverse team
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This Brings The Company's Total Financing To £7.2M ($10.1M).
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The Funding Will Progress Antibodies Targeting Several G-Protein Coupled Receptors and Ion Channels To The Clinic With Pharma Collaboration
Cardiff, Wales, UK/Prague, CZ, 15 October 2024. Antiverse, a techbio company designing antibodies for challenging targets, today announced it has added £3.5M ($4.6M) to its seed funding. The investment will facilitate the Company’s growth, including appointments to strengthen the team and continued development of its antibody design programmes, many in partnership with pharmaceutical companies. The latest investment round was led by i&i Biotech Fund I (i&i Bio) and Kadmos Capital, with additional investment from existing investors InnoSpark Ventures, UKI2S (managed by Future Planet Capital), Tensor Ventures, and AngelHub. This brings the total equity financing raised to £7.2M ($10.1M).
The funding will be used to expand the Company’s laboratory and machine learning teams, bolstering the development of its internal assets against G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channels towards the clinic, as well as facilitating ongoing collaborations with pharma and biotech companies. In addition, the Company aims to improve the predictive accuracy of its design platform, focusing on curating training data. Lastly, Antiverse has opened new facilities in Boston, MA, and Prague, Czech Republic, demonstrating its expansion.
Murat Tunaboylu, Co-Founder and CEO of Antiverse said: “A third of all FDA-approved drugs target GPCRs, yet, despite decades of research and billions of funding, only a few GPCR-targeting antibodies exist. Thanks to the support of our investors, we are one step closer to making GPCRs and other challenging targets druggable, bringing needed therapies to patients across the globe.”
Antiverse uses a machine-learning-centred approach to design antibodies for challenging targets, helping to bring needed therapies to patients. The current version of the platform uses ‘target-specific libraries’. These libraries are designed by using structural and sequence data to generate a library with high confidence against the target. This enhances the predictive accuracy compared to traditional antibody libraries, enabling Antiverse to design antibodies for many challenging targets, including GPCRs and ion channels. The platform accelerates the antibody discovery process to 6 months.
"Antiverse has made significant progress in the field of antibody design. Antiverse's mission to make GPCRs druggable focuses on a key issue and we are pleased to be supporting them."
Jaromír Zahrádka
i&i Biotech Fund
Jaromir Zahradka, CEO at i&i Bio, commented: “Antiverse has made significant progress in the field of antibody design. Antiverse's mission to make GPCRs druggable focuses on a key issue and we are pleased to be supporting them.”
John Gebeily, Operating Partner at Kadmos Capital, added: “Antiverse's AI-driven antibody design platform demonstrates significant potential in advancing the development of novel antibody therapeutics, particularly for complex drug targets. We're excited to support Murat and the team in their effort to significantly accelerate the development of life-saving treatments, and have a transformative impact on the pharmaceutical industry.”
Media Contact:
Luke Bateman, luke@antiverse.io
Martin Kovalčík, kovalcik@inibio.eu, +420 777 472 863
About Antiverse
Antiverse is an artificial intelligence-driven techbio company that specialises in antibody design against challenging targets, including G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) and ion channels. Headquartered in Cardiff, UK and with offices in Boston, MA, Antiverse combines state-of-the-art machine learning techniques and advanced cell line engineering to develop de novo antibody therapeutics. With a main focus on establishing long-term partnerships, Antiverse has collaborated with two top 20 global pharmaceutical companies. In addition, they are developing a strong internal pipeline of antibodies against several challenging drug targets across various indications.
For more information, please visit www.antiverse.io.
About i&i Biotech Fund (i&i Bio)
i&i Bio is a Luxembourg-based venture capital firm investing in innovative European life sciences companies specializing in drug discoveries, medical devices, diagnostics, and digital health. The fund, created through a collaboration between the biotech incubator i&i Prague and the European Investment Fund (EIF), manages over €53 million and aims to invest in approximately 20 early-stage companies. Led by a team with extensive experience in private equity, healthcare, and venture capital, i&i Bio supports entrepreneurs in achieving global success. The fund’s main sponsor, i&i Prague, plays a crucial role in advancing transformative Central European technology companies.
About the European Investment Fund (EIF)
The Fund is supported by an investment from the EIF, with the support of:
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lnnovFin Equity, with the financial backing of the European Union under Horizon 2020 Financial Instruments and the European Fund for Strategic Investments (EFSI) set up under the Investment Plan for Europe. The purpose of EFSI is to help support financing and implementing productive investments in the European Union and to ensure increased access to financing; and
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the Pan-European Guarantee Fund (EGF), implemented by the EIF with the financial support of the Participating Member States. The objective of EGF is to respond to the economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic by ensuring that companies in the Participating Member States have sufficient short-term liquidity available to weather the crisis and are able to continue their growth and development in the medium to long-term.
About Kadmos Capital
Kadmos Capital is an FCA regulated venture capital firm based in London. It focuses on early-stage deep-tech companies with hyper growth potential and positive impact. The fund aims to capitalize on Europe’s accelerating growth in Venture Capital investments.
For more information, please visit www.kadmoscapital.com.