More well thought out work can be found at — https://axial.substack.com/
Axial invests and partners in early-stage life sciences companies. If you or someone you know has a great idea or company in life sciences, Axial would be excited to get to know you and possibly invest in your vision and company — info@axialsprawl.com
Life Sciences Financings and Commentary #9 - May 23, 2020 - May 29, 2020
Financings
Number of deals: 20 & Total capital invested: $1.05B
- AbCellera raised $105M led by OrbiMed and DCVC Bio to continue to scale up their antibody discovery platform and build their internal pipeline of medicines.
- Apeel Sciences raised $250M led by GIC to commercialize their plant-based coverings to extend the shelf-life of specialty crops.
- Ascus Biosciences raised $46M led by Temasek to commercialize feedstock focused on animal microbiome health.
- Benchling raised $50M led by Alkeon Capital in a seemingly crossover round to scale up their life sciences SaaS product and make the transition toward lab automation capital. Saji has really built up a franchise over the last 8 years - https://www.forbes.com/sites/amyfeldman/2020/05/28/biotech-rd-software-startup-benchling-started-by-mit-undergrads-scores-850-million-valuation-amid-coronavirus-pandemic/#116d1a241dcd
- Bright.md raised $16.7M co-led by B Capital, Seven Peaks Ventures and Concord Health Partners to build the automation infrastructure for telemedicine and virtual care.
- CalciMedica raised $15M led by Valence Life Sciences to develop new medicines to treat acute and severe inflammatory diseases.
- Exscientia raised $60M led by Novo Holdings to build out their business model where the company brings its machine learning capabilities to co-develop new medicines.
- Ginkgo Bioworks raised $70M led by Illumina to scale up their testing infrastructure for COVID-19.
- Higi raised $30M led by Babylon to scale up their consumer health stations that measures things like BMI, blood pressure and more; they have hundreds of these stations across the US - https://secure.higi.com/locator
- Insitro raised $143M led by a16z Bio to scale up their machine learning drug development model; an example is Insitro’s 3-year deal with Gilead to develop new medicines for NASH - https://www.gilead.com/news-and-press/press-room/press-releases/2019/4/gilead-and-insitro-announce-strategic-collaboration-to-discover-and-develop-novel-therapies-for-nonalcoholic-steatohepatitis
- Medwing raised $30M led by Cathay Innovation to build their healthcare job matching product.
- Monte Rosa Therapeutics raised $32.5M with Versant Ventures and NEA co-leading the round to map out more E3 ligases to develop new targeted degradation medicines.
- Oncology Analytics raised $28M led by Baird Capital to continue to offer various services to help oncologists track patients and prescribe certain drugs.
- Palvella Therapeutics raised $45M from BVF, Samsara BioCapital, and others in a crossover round to develop drugs for rare genetic skin diseases.
- Q32 Bio raised $46M led by Atlas Venture to develop new medicines for autoimmune and inflammatory diseases.
- Siren raised $11.8M led by Anathem Ventures to develop smart socks to monitor diabetes patients foot health - https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/27/siren-raises-11-8m-for-its-limb-saving-smart-socks/
- Tia raised $24.3M led by Threshold Ventures to build their full-suite women’s health product - https://fortune.com/2020/05/28/coronavirus-womens-health-care-tia-clinic-ceo-carolyn-witte/
- Thriva raised £4M led by Target Global to build their at-home blood testing product - https://techcrunch.com/2020/05/22/thriva-raises-4m-from-target-in-an-era-when-at-home-blood-testing-is-more-crucial-than-ever/
- Variant Bio raised $16M led by Lux Capital to analyze the genomes of rare populations to discover new targets and develop new medicines.
- ViaCyte raised $27M from Bain Capital Life Sciences, TPG Capital, RA Capital Management, and Sanderling Ventures to further develop their phase 1/2 device/therapeutic combo to use an immunoprotective pouch to store insulin-producing cells to functionally cure type 1 diabetes.
Exits
Number of exits: 5 & Total exit value: At least $1B
- Avidity Biosciences filed to raise $100M in an IPO to build out their pipeline of antibody therapies for muscle diseases - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1599901/000119312520150102/d897644ds1.htm
- Burning Rock Biotech filed for an IPO to raise $100M to build out their early cancer detection and therapeutics platform - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1792267/000119312520149218/d806768df1.htm
- Generation Bio filed to raise a $125M IPO to continue development of their non-viral medicines for rare diseases - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1733294/000119312520150059/d924849ds1.htm
- Themis Bioscience was acquired by Merck for an undisclosed amount to bolster their COVID-19 vaccine efforts.
- Vaxcyte (formerly known as SutroVax) filed to raise $100M in an IPO to develop pneumococcal vaccines - https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1649094/000119312520150234/d802328ds1.htm
I used to play football a long time ago - I had some decent success mainly because of my teammates with some of them playing in the NFL. Every practice, every game was an existential fight. I’m not that athletic so every year some 6’4 monster would show up trying to take my spot. Similarly, all of these companies are fighting for their right to exist whether they raised $1M or $100M. Building a great business requires passion and focus. A really powerful and useful framework to lead groups of people and win was developed by Bill Walsh -