US-based biotechnology startup Agenovir has raised $10.6m in series A capital from a syndicate including pharmaceutical company Celgene.
The round was led by venture capital firm Data Collective and also featured Lightspeed Venture Partners, assorted angel investors and a range of unnamed investors.
Agenovir is using nucleases – a type of enzyme that cuts bonds in nucleic acids – to fight viruses by attacking them at the DNA-level, and the technology may potentially be able to cure currently untreatable conditions.
The company’s technology is based on research by Stephen Quake, professor of bioengineering and applied physics at Stanford University and Howard Hughes Medical Institute.
Agenovir, which is also a portfolio company of pharmaceutical firm Johnson & Johnson’s JLabs incubator in South San Francisco, will use the money to recruit a leadership team and to accelerate its research and development activities.