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- Funding will accelerate development of the Company’s AI-powered antibody drug discovery technology, focused on identifying new therapeutics for cancer, heart, and lung diseases
- Technology aims to speed up drug development from years to weeks
- New laboratory to be built in Cardiff with the support of the Development Bank of Wales
Antiverse, a biotechnology company developing a computational antibody drug discovery platform, has raised seed funding totalling £1.4 million ($2 million USD), comprising new investment and match funding from Innovate UK’s UKI2S Innovate Accelerator programme. The funding will be used to further develop their AI antibody drug discovery platform, which rapidly and accurately predicts antibody-antigen binding to identify antibody drug candidates.
Investors in the seed round funding include Development Bank of Wales, Angel Co-Investment Fund, Tensor Ventures, Wren Capital, Ed Parkinson, Cambridge Angels, and SyndicateRoom. A portion of the capital raised will be used to build a laboratory in Cardiff, Wales and expand the technical team through recruitment of specialist machine learning engineers, laboratory scientists and structural biologists.
Antiverse is combining machine learning and phage display techniques to model antibody-antigen interactions. The current version of the platform uses next generation sequencing and AI to provide diverse antibody candidates for any given target. The technology will enable the development of drugs for “difficult” targets associated with cancer, heart, and lung diseases.
Murat Tunaboylu, Chief Executive Officer of Antiverse, said: “Our investors recognise the potential of our AI-powered antibody drug discovery platform to provide a breakthrough in the industry. With our technology, it will be possible to develop drugs for difficult targets and ultimately reduce the drug discovery timescales from years to weeks. In addition to platform development, the funding will enable us to invest in facilities and recruitment; we are grateful to our investors and Innovate UK for their continued support.”
Ed Parkinson, lead investor for the syndicate of Angel Investors, commented: “Antiverse has an ambitious team of AI experts and scientists with a vision to transform drug discovery. This is a great example of a world class business taking off in Wales with the support of the Development Bank of Wales.”
"We are very excited and confident investing into Antiverse. The company has great ambitions and shows huge potential in the intersection of biology and AI.” said Martin Drdul, founder & general partner of Tensor Ventures.
Rafael Joseph, Development Bank of Wales commented: “Together with our Wales Angel Co-Investment Fund, the Development Bank is helping more Welsh businesses to grow with equity funding; creating impact for the benefit of the Welsh economy. Our angel syndicates and networks are active across Wales and we are delighted to be supporting Antiverse on their journey with our seed investment. They really are at the cutting edge of using AI to augment and speed up the drug discovery process. Their work is transformational and it’s very exciting that it is happening here in Wales.”
