USA – ArrePath, a drug discovery startup, announced a US$20 million seed funding round led by the Boehringer Ingelheim Venture Fund, Insight Partners, and Innospark Ventures.
Viva BioInnovator, Arimed Capital, PTX Capital, and Nor’easter Ventures are among the other investors in the round.
The investment will be used to support the company’s machine learning-based drug discovery platform, which focuses on developing new types of anti-infective drugs to combat antimicrobial resistance.
Dr. Lloyd Payne was also named president and CEO of ArrePath. Payne was most recently executive vice president and head of anti-infectives at Evotec, a German drug discovery company.
The funding will be used by the Princeton, New Jersey-based startup to further develop its artificial intelligence and imaging-based drug discovery platform, which will be used to identify compounds with novel and underutilized mechanisms of action.
The method combines phenotypic screening, proteomics, and genomics-based technologies with data analysis powered by machine learning, avoiding the use of standard growth inhibition assays, which can be slow and may miss potentially promising mechanisms.
According to the company, it decodes the complex behavior of bacteria when they are exposed to new chemical entities, a process known as ‘bacterial autopsies.’
According to the 2019 Gram Report, ArrePath hopes that its platform will generate entirely new anti-infective classes, thereby addressing the growing problem of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which kills at least 1.27 million people each year.
Funding for health startups
Rupa Health, which provides a platform for providers to order and receive lab test results, received US$20 million in Series A funding.
Bessemer Ventures led the round, which was joined by existing investors such as First Round Capital, Lachy Groom, SV Angel, Floodgate, Hustle Fund, Operator Collective, the Chainsmokers, Jared Leto, and Joe Montana.
According to CEO and cofounder Tara Viswanathan in a blog post on the company’s website, the platform allows providers to order traditional labs alongside other tests developed by independent companies, such as microbiome analyses, which may be more difficult to obtain.
CancerIQ has announced a US$14 million Series B funding round led by Merck Global Health Innovation Fund and Amgen Ventures. McKesson Ventures, OSF Ventures, and HealthX Ventures are among the other investors.
The platform of the startup is embedded in an EHR and assists providers in determining an individual patient’s cancer risk based on family history, genetics, health behaviors, and other factors.
It can also direct patients down different care pathways based on their outcomes, such as screenings, vaccinations, and lifestyle changes.
CancerIQ received US$4.8 million in Series A funding in 2020. This latest round of funding will help CancerIQ reach more patients and connect to more innovations that promise to transform cancer from a deadly disease to a manageable condition.
According to Axios, Daybreak Health, a digital mental health company for children and teens focused on schools, has raised US$10 million in Series A funding.
Lightspeed Venture Partners led the round, with participation from Maven Ventures and individual investors. The round follows a US$1.8 million seed round announced by the company about a year ago.
Daybreak intends to use the funds to expand across the country while focusing on health equity.
Juli, an AI-enabled app that tracks metrics such as activity, sleep, lab results, EHR data, and weather to assist users in managing chronic conditions, has raised US$3.8 million in seed funding.
Speedinvest and Norrsken VC led the round, with participation from SoftBank’s Vision Fund Emerge Program and Dieter von Holtzbrinck Ventures.
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