US-based monoclonal antibody developer Arsanis has gone public in a $40m initial public offering that provided exits for several corporate investors including internet and technology group Alphabet.
The company issued 4 million shares on the Nasdaq Global Market priced at $10 each, well below the IPO’s $15 to $17 range. A fund affiliated with venture capital firm New Enterprise Associates (NEA) agreed to buy another $20m of shares through a private placement.
Arsanis is developing monoclonal antibody-based immunotherapies to treat serious infectious diseases, and will put the brunt of the IPO into developing its lead drug candidate, ASN100, which will combat a life-threatening disease known as Staphylococcus aureus pneumonia.
The IPO was preceded by approximately $95m in equity and debt financing, including a $45.5m series D round in April 2017 featuring GV, the Alphabet subsidiary formerly known as Google Ventures, and EMBL Ventures, part of research institution European Molecular Biology Laboratory.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation led the round, which also included Alexandria Venture Investments, a branch of real estate trust Alexandria Real Estate Equities, OrbiMed, Polaris Venture Partners, SV Health Investors, NeoMed, and Anna Maria and Stephen Kellen Foundation.
GV held a 5.9% share of Arsanis that was cut to 3.3% following the offering and private placement. The company’s largest external investors were Polaris, Orbimed and SV Life Sciences, which each owned 17.8% stakes that were cut to 10%.
Other notable investors in Arsanis include Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which came out with a 5.3% stake post-IPO, NeoMed (4.2%), and Section 32 (3.3%).
Citigroup, Piper Jaffray and Cowen and Company are the joint book-running managers for the IPO and were placement agents for the private placement.
The underwriters have a 30-day option to buy a further 600,000 shares, lifting the size of the offering to $46m. Arsanis floated on Thursday last week and its shares closed at $13.93 on Friday.