GV, an early-stage corporate venturing unit of internet and technology conglomerate Alphabet, backed a $60m series A round for Canada-based immunotherapy developer Ventus Therapeutics yesterday.
The round was led by venture capital firm Versant Ventures, Ventus’s founding investor, although details of its earlier contribution could not be ascertained.
Ventus Therapeutics is working on small molecule drugs for cancer and autoimmune diseases that work by interacting with the body’s innate immunity, mechanisms which become active only once a foreign antigen is present.
The company’s approach relies on structural immunology in order to generate stable monomers – the molecular building blocks that make proteins. These are then used to form known immunity targets such as inflammasomes and nucleic acids.
Ventus will use the series A proceeds to advance three programs targeting multiple autoimmune inflammatory diseases as well as certain treatment-resistant cancers.
The company also hopes to bolster headcount to more than 30 as it looks to uncover additional drug candidates both internally and through partnership agreements.
Ventus’s founding team includes Hao Wu, a professor of biological chemistry and molecular pharmacology at Harvard Medical School, and Richard Flavell, the Sterling professor of immunobiology at Yale University.
The academic co-founders also include Judy Lieberman, endowed chair in cellular and molecular medicine and professor of paediatrics at Harvard Medical School.
Thomas Tuschl, professor and head of the molecular biology lab at Rockefeller University, and Feng Shao, investigator and deputy director for academic affairs at China’s National Institute of Biological Sciences, are also co-founders.