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 the UKI2S Innovate Accelerator.
The funding will be used to further develop Antiverse’s AI antibody drug discovery platform, which rapidly and accurately predicts antibody-antigen binding to identify antibody drug candidates.
Investors in the seed funding round 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, using next generation sequencing and AI to provide diverse antibody candidates for any given target. The technology will enable the development of drugs for 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 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.”
