BioInnovation Institute (BII), a Copenhagen, Denmark-based international non-profit foundation incubating and accelerating world-class life science research, provided additional financial support to five companies through its Venture House program.
The Venture House program provides exclusive follow-on funding in the form of a founder-friendly convertible loan of EUR 1.3M to selected companies that have already participated in the 12-month Venture Lab program created to support business acceleration, scientific and team development. This is the second cohort of companies to be accepted into the Venture House program since its launch in August 2022.
To support product innovation and ecosystem growth, the program consists of four executive sprints, each focused on a key development area to help mature the project and ultimately attract further funding. The first sprint focuses on helping the companies develop an operational plan, while the following sprints provide training and support in fundraising, partnership, and leadership.
In March 2022, as part of the BII’s Venture Lab program that supports business acceleration, scientific development and team development, each company received a risk-free convertible loan of EUR 500,000 plus access to labs and offices at the BII’s entrepreneurial ecosystem in the center of Copenhagen. Thus, after entering the Venture House program they have received in total of EUR 1.8M. The new companies the BII has accepted into the Venture House program are:
- Tetrakit Technologies, which develops the next generation of radioactive drugs to find and destroy cancer tumors. Its mission is to enable better, safer, and more cost-effective theranostic radiopharmaceuticals for patients with advanced cancer.
- Ousia Pharma is a toxicology-stage life science company focused on developing innovative medicines for treatment of metabolic and neurological disorders. Ousia Pharma utilize a proprietary targeting approach in which peptides are used to deliver modulators of neuroplasticity to drive potent and sustained disease modifying benefits for patients suffering from obesity and cognitive disorders.
- Aiomic is developing an AI platform (Aiomic360) to combat postoperative complications. With automated tracking and real-time risk assessment, Aiomic360 will function as quality management tool for hospitals, a decision support tool for healthcare practitioners and an individualized patient empowerment tool for surgical candidates.
- Nordic Virtual Pastures introduces its ground-breaking ‘Virtual Media’ for the propagation of meat cells that through a sustainable and low-cost production process will allow the world to continue eating meat without the ethical and environmental issues that today surround the conventional meat industry.
- Mello is developing a Smart Delivery Platform to enable the effective delivery of probiotics and bioactives, for healthier food and drink. Initially focusing on probiotic delivery – with its target-driven, controlled-release delivery technology the company aims to overcome a number of industry-wide challenges which currently prevent optimizing probiotic benefit.
Since its inception in 2018, BII has supported 80 start-ups and projects with EUR 71 million alongside the venture capital, industry and business expertise it provides to help them accelerate to the next level. In total, BII’s start-ups have raised over EUR 382 million in external funding from both local and international investors. Recent company successes include Adcendo, Stipe Therapeutics, Twelve Bio, Octarine Bio, and Cirqle Biomedical.
FinSMEs
16/03/2023